Maya Angelou Quotes (173 Quotes)

The city became for me the ideal of what I wanted to be as a grown-up. Friendly, but never gushing, cool but not frigid or distant, distinguished without the awful stiffness.

The dread of futility has been my life-long plague.

The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve.

Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School.

Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse.

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.

I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life...her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing.

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.

If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking.

It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.

Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.

She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.

Her passion was never spent in public display.

While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man's humanity to man.

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.

I was thinking about that, about the journeys in the film, journey to the roots, journey to the heart. We're all on journeys.

this is my life. it is my one time to be me. i want to experience every good thing.

love builds up the broken walland straigtens the crooked path.love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on te ocean tideseach of us is created of itand i suspecteach of us was created for it

In today's climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of the homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present.

If they want to learn how to live life right
they ought to study me on Saturday night.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

Those of us who have gathered here, ... we owe something from this minute on, so this gathering is not just another footnote on the pages of history.

It is not the answer you look for that makes you strong. It's the ways that you take that define who you are and what you can do.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.

There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

I do not believe that the accident of birth makes people sisters and brothers. It makes them siblings. Gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood are conditions people have to work at. It's a serious matter. You compromise, you give, you take, you stand firm, and you're relentless...And it is an investment. Sisterhood means if you happen to be in Burma and I happen to be in San Diego and I'm married to someone who is very jealous and you're married to somebody who is very possessive, if you call me in the middle of the night, I have to come.

She cherished her race. She cherished women. She cared for gay and straight people. She prayed nightly for Palestine and equally for Israel.