Maya Angelou

"I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it’s the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, No. No, I’m finished. Bye. And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that."

"Years ago I read a man named Machado de Assis who wrote a book called Dom Casmurro. Machado de Assis is a South American writer — black father, Portuguese mother — writing in 1865, say. I thought the book was very nice. Then I went back and read the book and said, Hmm. I didn’t realize all that was in that book. Then I read it again, and again, and I came to the conclusion that what Machado de Assis had done for me was almost a trick: he had beckoned me onto the beach to watch a sunset. And I had watched the sunset with pleasure. When I turned around to come back in I found that the tide had come in over my head. That’s when I decided to write."

"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."

"We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life."

"If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls."

"Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. A Brave and Startling Truth."

"It is possible and imperative that we discover A brave and startling truth."

"When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power to fashion for this earth A climate where every man and every woman Can live freely without sanctimonious piety And without crippling fear When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world That is when, and only when We come to it."

"Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone. Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him. He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance. Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love, and survived and did more than that. He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his."

"We are missing Michael. But we do know we had him, and we are the world."

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song"

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

"Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet."

"People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel."

"silence can also enrich you very much. Maya Angelou talks about a long period in her childhood when she was silent, and during those years she turned evil into action. All the evil that had happened to her she was raped-was turned into a positive strength, into energy, because of those years of silence. She reinterpreted the world, recreated reality. In a way, I think, that happened to me, too. Not as dramatically as it happened to her, but those years of silence were very necessary."

"I remember a kind of paraphrase, a quote from Maya Angelou; I don't recall the exact words, but paraphrased it kind of goes like this: if you have to hang by your feet and smear honey on your legs to get yourself writing, then do it. You know whatever works."

"Angelou as a child...She'd often quote Shakespeare or Langston Hughes and now adds Gwendolyn Brooks, Mark Twain and Edna St. Vincent Millay to that list. But those writers, those dreamers, gave her a chance to develop Maya Angelou from Marguerite Johnson."

"To me, the great writers who come from ethnic minorities writing in English come from America. I think the deep, the real deep thinkers now writing in the English language are the black women, such as Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, etc. (F.J.: Where they are using black English in a certain kind of way to signify their difference?) Emecheta: Exactly...Or Maya Angelou-she's another good writer, isn't she? You can understand what she is saying."

"In remembering Maya Angelou, it is important to recall her commitment to the struggle for equality, not just for herself, or for women, or for African Americans. She was committed to peace and justice for all."

"While some schools and libraries still censor her work for unflinchingly depicting the life she led, it was through my hometown library, while in my early teens, that I first saw Maya Angelou. The library invited her to speak, and speak she did—and danced, and sang, in a display of talent that made us laugh, cry and gasp as she moved her black and white audience of hundreds…together."

"She has become, now a legend," he said...Miss Angelou has a presence that commands attention. Haley called it "Hollywood energy. "When she walks into the room, you know she's there," Haley said. "It's a palpable thing."

"This night she breathes life into works of Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Richard Wright and Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as poems of her own. But it is her voice, as much as the words, that engages the crowd. Burnished and full, the voice is a theatrical blend of city sass and back-country molasses."

"Most great instigators of social change have intimate personal knowledge of trauma. Oprah Winfrey comes to mind, as do Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, and Elie Wiesel. Read the life history of any visionary, and you will find insights and passions that came from having dealt with devastation."

"The day I received a hand written note from Maya Angelou, stating that she had read The Margarita Poems and I should consider her another Margarita, was a private moment of recognition."

"Singer, teacher, dancer, poet, authoress, actress, editor, songwriter, playwright. Someone has said Maya Angelou's career has touched more bases than Henry Aaron. Yet all these categories fail to do justice to the scope of her life."

"It is such a profound honor — truly a profound honor — to be here today on behalf of myself and my husband as we celebrate one of the greatest spirits our world has ever known, our dear friend Dr. Maya Angelou. In the Book of Psalms it reads, “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works, my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.” What a perfect description of Maya Angelou and the gift she gave to her family and all who loved her. She taught us that we are each wonderfully made, intricately woven and put on this earth for purpose far greater than we could ever imagine. When I think about Maya Angelou I think about the affirming power of her words. The first time I read “Phenomenal Woman” I was struck by how she celebrated black women’s beauty like no one had ever dared to before. Our curves, our stride, our strength, our grace. Her words were clever, and sassy. They were powerful and sexual and boastful. And in that one singular poem, Maya Angelou spoke to the essence of black women but she also graced us with an anthem for all women, a call for all of us to embrace our God-given beauty. And oh, how desperately black girls needed that message. As a young woman I needed that message. As a child, my first doll was Malibu Barbie — that was the standard for perfection. That was what the world told me to aspire to. But then I discovered Maya Angelou, and her words lifted me right out of my own little head. Her message was very simple: She told us that our worth has nothing to do with what the world might say. Instead she said, “Each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory.” She reminded us that we must each find our own voice, decide our own value, and then announce it to the world with all the pride and joy that is our birthright as members of the human race...at a time when there were such stifling constraints on how black women could exist in the world, she serenely disregarded all the rules with fiercely passionate, unapologetic self. She was comfortable in every inch of her glorious brown skin. But for Dr. Angelou her own transition was never enough. You see, she didn’t just want to be phenomenal herself. She wanted us all to be phenomenal right alongside her. So that’s what she did throughout her lifetime. She gathered so many of us under her wing...in so many ways Maya Angelou knew us. She knew our hope, our pain, our ambition, our fear, our anger, our shame. And she assured us that in spite of it all — in fact, because of it all — we were good. And in doing so, she paved the way for me, and Oprah and so many others just to be our good ol’ black women selves. She showed us that eventually, if we stayed true to who we are, then the world would embrace us. And she did this not just for black women but for all women. For all human beings. She taught us all that it is okay to be your regular old self, whatever that is. Your poor self, your broken self, your brilliant, bold, phenomenal self. That was Maya Angelou’s reach."

""Gratitude Pillow" ("Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel" -Maya Angelou) ...if anyone told her they were going/to Gloomy Street,/she'd say, What? Lift those eyes. Take a look at the/sea to your right, buildings full of mysteries, schools/crackling with joy, open porches,/watch the world whirl by,/all we are given without having to own, and shake/that gloom right out of your system!"

"I am a woman phenomenally"

"Many people wonder where my secret lies, I'm not cute a bill to suit a fashion model size, when i tell them they think I'm telling lies"

"I walk into a room just as cool as you please, then to a man, they stand or fall on their knees, then they swam around me a hive of honey bees"

"We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated."

"To not be reduced by the events of our lives means to rise above them"

""One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest"."