Maya Angelou Quotes

He was right. I would only eke out a living as a singer. The limited success I had, which Bailey recognized, stemmed from the fact that I didn't love singing. My voice was fair and interesting; my ear was not great, or even good, but my rhythm was reliable. Still, I could never become a great singer, since I would not sacrifice for it. To become wondrously successful and to sustain that success in any profession, one must be willing to relinquish many pleasures and be ready to postpone gratification. I didn't care enough for my own singing to make other people appreciate it.

I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick. (1977)

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.

Determine to live life with flair and laughter.

Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it.

You develop courage, the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. If you've seen another truth and had enough courage to change your way of thinking, to say "Hey everybody, you know what I said last week? I don't believe that anymore. A little child just straightened me out."

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.

The charitable say in effect, 'I seem to have more than I need and you seem to have less than you need. I would like to share my excess with you.' Fine, if my excess is tangible, money or goods, and fine if not, for I learned that to be charitable with gestures and words can bring enormous joy and repair injured feelings.

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.

To those who are given much, much is expected.

Poetry is music for the human voice. Until you actually speak it or someone speaks it, it has not come into its own.

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.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.

You are the sum total of everything you've seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot- it's all right there.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.