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
To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That's what Norman Mailer did. That's what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that's what I do - that's what I mean to do.
The writer has to take the most used, most familiar objects - nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs - ball them together and make them bounce, turn them a certain way and make people get into a romantic mood; and another way, into a bellicose mood. I'm most happy to be a writer.
A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.
Food served is always more than just food served. That is to say, it is more than just fuel for the body. Depending upon who has prepared the food and who has served it and with what spirit, it can uplift the--and around the world, in every culture, food is used to flirt, to be coy, a raise in the employment or to search for employment. It can bring warring factions together.
When a man tells you who he is...believe him.
I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.'
Courage allows the successful woman to fail-and learn powerful lessons-from the failure-so that in the end,she didn't fail at all.
The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama's entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.
See, you don't have to think about doing the right thing if you're for the right thing then you'll do it without thinking.
See, you dont have to think about doing the right thing if you are for the right thing then youll do it without thinking.
At one time in my life, from the time I was seven until I was about 13, I didn't speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn't speak: I had been molested, and I told the name of the molester to my brother who told it to the family.
At the worst of times, there's the possibility of seeing hope, ... That's why that song is so important right now.
I was thinking about that, about the journeys in the film, journey to the roots, journey to the heart. We're all on journeys.
I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.