143 Maya Angelou Quotes for You to Enjoy

Maya Angelou

American Poet

Born: Apr 4, 1928

Died: May 28, 2014

Life Love Me People Time You

Related authors: Edgar Allan Poe Emily Dickinson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost T. S. Eliot Walt Whitman E. E. Cummings

I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I'm a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself - all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve. Maya Angelou

Life Good I Am Mother Citizen Feeling Sister Energy Good Mother Nerve Involved Make Am Lot Friend Itself Very Good Citizen Good Friend

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich. Maya Angelou

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike. Maya Angelou

Work Saying I Am Better Stronger Lyrics Alike Ourselves All My Work I Write More Poetry Imperative Write Allow Prose Am Encounter Than Essays May Human Maybe Human Beings Movies Much Many Appear Beings Defeats

I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defense when and wherever needed. Maya Angelou

If you want what you're saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody's life. Your own, first. Maya Angelou

Life Saying Time You Will Somebody First Own Say Take Hear Heard Listener Want Might Then Your Actually Save

I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing. Maya Angelou

Jealous Me Writing Few Married Husbands Times

If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England - you couldn't have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things. Maya Angelou

Me You Queen Mother President States Dare Would Would-Be More Could Protective Sort Were Than Person Which Really Meant England Who United United States Things

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

Mind Think Say Only Autobiographical Fiction Happened Such A Thing Even Thing

Once you appreciate one of your blessings, one of your senses, your sense of hearing, then you begin to respect the sense of seeing and touching and tasting, you learn to respect all the senses. Maya Angelou

You Respect Sense Once Seeing Touching Blessings Learn Hearing Begin Tasting Senses Then Your Appreciate

I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly. Maya Angelou

The language of all the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian Bible, is musical, just wonderful. I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. 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's what I do - that's what I mean to do. Maya Angelou

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, 'I'd like to write about that.' Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem. Maya Angelou

You Sometimes Mind Approaching Situation Think Keys Say Ways Those Runs See About Fingers Poem Pianist Write Over Like May Being Different Want Then Search Now Different Ways Her Two

I'm interested in women's health because I'm a woman. I'd be a darn fool not to be on my own side. Maya Angelou

Health Woman Fool Women Own Side Darn My Own Because Interested

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

Ignorance Stems Talent Alternatives Children Endure

I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.' Maya Angelou

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