I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.
— Maya Angelou
We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.
There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.
The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
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.
At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.
If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
All great achievements require time.
Nothing will work unless you do.
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.
That's the biggest gift I can give anybody: 'Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you're doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.'
Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.
Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'
The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
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.
We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.
Achievement brings its own anticlimax.
Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.
I know for sure that loves saves me and that it is here to save us all.
Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but don't be reduced by them. Just say, 'That's life.'
Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.
I believe that every person is born with talent.
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
Life loves the liver of it.
I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.
All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someone - because we have the impulse to explain who we are.
I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I'm praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I'm grateful that I'm heard.
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.
