Quotes by Maya Angelou

About Maya Angelou:

Maya Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

Maya Angelou

I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.

Maya Angelou

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, 'Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.'

Maya Angelou

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That's what Norman Mailer did. That's what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that...

Maya Angelou

I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.

Maya Angelou

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.

Maya Angelou

I will not sit in a room with black people when the N word is used. I know it was meant to belittle a person, so I will not sit there and have that poison put on me. Now a black person can say, 'Oh, you know, I can use this word because I'm black.'

Maya Angelou

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that's all. So we direct our values to material things.

Maya Angelou

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Maya Angelou

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Maya Angelou

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

Maya Angelou

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

Maya Angelou

I got my own back.

Maya Angelou

Effective action is always unjust.

Maya Angelou

I think that that's the wisest thing - to prevent illness before we try to cure something.

Maya Angelou

I know for sure that loves saves me and that it is here to save us all.

Maya Angelou

I wasn't a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at 15, you know.

Maya Angelou

I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.

Maya Angelou

Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.

Maya Angelou

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

Maya Angelou

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

Maya Angelou

Author Bio

  • NameMaya Angelou
  • DescriptionAmerican author and poet
  • BornApril 4, 1928
  • DiedMay 28, 2014
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Actor; Dancer; Film Producer; Television Producer; Playwright; Film Director; Professor; Screenwriter; Writer; Essayist; Songwriter; Autobiographer
  • WorksI Know Why The Caged Bird Sings; On The Pulse Of Morning
  • AwardsMarian Anderson Award; National Women's Hall Of Fame