Maya Angelou Quotes
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I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.
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I love a Hebrew National hot dog with an ice-cold Corona - no lime. If the phone rings, I won't answer until I'm done.
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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.
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It's very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.
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The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama's entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.
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My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.
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I love the melodies in the Old Testament, how preachers highlight them when they read from the Scripture. But I was influenced forever by the New Testament. I love the Beatitudes, informing us that the meek shall inherit the earth.
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Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?
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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.
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I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.
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Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, 'Children's Letters to God.' You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, 'Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.'
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As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.
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Yes. When I’m writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness.
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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.
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Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
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Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life.
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A black person grows up in this country - and in many places - knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.
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I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.
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My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God - I thank God every time I think of it - I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.
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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.
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I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine... before she realizes she's reading.
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When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess.
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Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'
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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.