Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelouwas an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth4 April 1928
CitySt. Louis, MO
CountryUnited States of America
No sun outlasts its sunset, but will rise again and bring the dawn.
I know why the caged bird sings.
Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it; to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other.
Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God. My pretty Black brother was my Kingdom Come.
Courage allows the successful woman to fail - and to learn powerful lessons from the failure - so that in the end, she didn't fail at all.
Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales? If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness.
I am a child of God. I always carry that with me.
What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.
You can't get too high for somebody to bring you down.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it.
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
People will never forget how you made them feel.
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.