Maya Angelou

"I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?"

"There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing."

"There were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing. So you watch yourself about complaining. 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."

"Segregation shaped me education liberated me."

"I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better."

"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed."

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently."

"I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive."

"When I am 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'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language."

"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."

"Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake."

"I couldn't tell fact from fiction,Or if the dream was true My only sure prediction In this world was you. I'd touch your features inchly. Beard love and dared the cost, The sented spiel reeled me unreal And I found my senses lost."

"You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies,You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise."

"Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life."

"I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories."

"I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I remind myself it is sufficient to know what I know, and that what I know, may not always be true."

"No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."

"To those who are given much, much is expected."

"Your crown has been bought and paid for. Put it on your head and wear it."