Maya Angelou quotes - page 17

Information helps you to see that you're not alone. That there's somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who have wept, who've all longed and lost, who've all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you're not really any different from everyone else. (Maya Angelou)
Black women have not historically stood in the pulpit, but that doesn't undermine the fact that they built the churches and maintain the pulpits. View quote
Maya Angelou
If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind. View quote
Maya Angelou
Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber... they're listening to poetry. View quote
Maya Angelou
I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything. View quote
Maya Angelou
And if a person is religious, I think it's good, it helps you a bit. But if you're not, at least you can have the sense that there is a condition inside you which looks at the stars with amazement and awe. View quote
Maya Angelou
You can't be consistently fair, consistently generous, consistently just, or consistently merciful. You can be anything erratically, but to be that thing time after time after time, you have to have courage. View quote
Maya Angelou
The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood. View quote
Maya Angelou
I do like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. But I like - if somebody is going to come into my house and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them. View quote
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. View quote
Maya Angelou
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. (Maya Angelou)
It's good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers. View quote
Maya Angelou
Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear. View quote
Maya Angelou
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. View quote
Maya Angelou
I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on. View quote
Maya Angelou
It's still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out. View quote
Maya Angelou
For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books. View quote
Maya Angelou
In a long meter hymn, a singer - they call it 'lays out a line.' And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can't wedge a pin between it. View quote
Maya Angelou
If you do not like anything, alter it. If you can not change it, adjust your mindset. Will not complain. View quote
Maya Angelou
I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out. View quote
Maya Angelou
All God's children need traveling shoes. (Maya Angelou)
Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again. View quote
Maya Angelou
Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, "I'm not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth." Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, "Yes, I deserve it." View quote
Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. View quote
Maya Angelou
I suggest that the great art belongs to all people, all the time--that indeed it is made for the people, by the people, to the people. View quote
Maya Angelou