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''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.''
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author. interview broadcast, Nov. 21, 1973. "A Conversation with Maya Angelou," Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989).
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The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black America...
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author, poet. interview, Nov. 21, 1973. "A Conversation with Maya Angelou," Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989).
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Strictly speaking, one cannot legislate love, but what one can do is legislate fairness and justice. If legislation does not prohibit our living side by side, sooner or later your child will fall on t...
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), African American author and performer. As quoted in I Dream a World, by Brian Lanker (1989).
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...there is a difference between being convinced and being stubborn. I'm not certain what the difference is, but I do know that if you butt your head against a stone wall long enough, at some point yo...
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author and performer. As quoted in Reel Women, part 4, by Ally Acker (1991).
Said in 1979, on giving up her attempt t...
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''...talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.''
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author and performer. Black Women Writers at Work, ch. 1, by Claudia Tate (1983).
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''The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.''
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author. Caged Bird, Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? (1983).
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We had won. Pimps got out of their polished cars and walked the streets of San Francisco only a little uneasy at the unusual exercise. Gamblers, ignoring their sensitive fingers, shook hands with shoe...
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author, poet. Gather Together in My Name, vol. 2, prologue (1974).
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''I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year.''
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), African American author and performer. Gather Together in My Name, ch. 1 (1974).
On the sense of "festival" in the San Fra...
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''Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.''
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author. Gather Together in My Name, vol. 2, ch. 6 (1974).
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Stories of law violations are weighed on a different set of scales in the Black mind than in the white. Petty crimes embarrass the community and many people wistfully wonder why Negroes don't rob more...
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Maya Angelou (b. 1928), African American poet, autobiographer, and performer. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 29 (1970).
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A Brave and Startling Truth
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We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.
Love costs all we are and will ever be.
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Poets
