"When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature."
Read quote
5 likes
Quote collection
Maya Angelou quotes (page 33 of 51)
1K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Home is that youthful region where a child is the only real living inhabitant. Parents, siblings, and neighbors are mysterious apparitions who come, go, and do strange unfathomable thing in and around the child, the region's only enfranchised citizen."
Read quote
5 likes
"Blacks concede that hurrawing, jibing, jiving, signifying, disrespecting, cursing, even outright insults might be acceptable under particular conditions, but aspersions cast against one's family call for immediate attack."
Read quote
5 likes
"The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are."
Read quote
5 likes
"All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike."
Read quote
5 likes
"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."
Read quote
5 likes
"I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they'll do wonders. I count on them."
Read quote
5 likes
"Whenever something went wrong when I was young - if I had a pimple or if my hair broke - my mom would say, 'Sister mine, I'm going to make you some soup.' And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger."
Read quote
5 likes
"Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life."
Read quote
5 likes
"When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young."
Read quote
5 likes
"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."
Read quote
5 likes
"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."
Read quote
5 likes
"When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe."
Read quote
5 likes
"I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music."
Read quote
5 likes
"To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents."
Read quote
5 likes
"I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness."
Read quote
5 likes
"I want to be a good human being. I'm doing my best, and I'm working at it."
Read quote
5 likes
"Sunday, if I'm lucky, I'll go to church or listen to some good spiritual advice on the television or on the radio. I take three or four baths to try to cleanse myself, so I'm fresh for Monday."
Read quote
5 likes
"If men are God's gift to women, then God must really love gag gifts."
Read quote
5 likes
"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."
Read quote
5 likes