Authors — Quotes

Maya Angelou Quotes: 76

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.
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. Don't complain.
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
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.
In the flush of love's light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.
I write some country music. There's a song called 'I Hope You Dance.' Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.
When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.
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.
I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.(Popular misquote of "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.")
Letter to My Daughter
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.
I thank God I'm myself and for the life I'm given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.
I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
Letter to My Daughter
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style
Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.
Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's sizeBut when I start to tell them,They think I'm telling lies.I say,It's in the reach of my armsThe span of my hips,The stride of my step,The curl of my lips.I'm a womanPhenomenally.Phenomenal woman,That's me.
Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women
Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
Letter to My Daughter
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!
You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.
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.
No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life.
There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.
I sustain myself with the love of family.
First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.
I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.
When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.
A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing.She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself
All great achievements require time.
I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that's in it. Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute.
Nothing will work unless you do.
I love the song 'I Hope You Dance' by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it.
I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.
Letter to My Daughter
Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
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.
In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.
It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women
Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
To those who are given much, much is expected.
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.
Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.
Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.
Letter to My Daughter
It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.
Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake.
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.
That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got. I've told you many times, 'Cant do is like Dont Care.' Neither of them have a home.
I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.
I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.
Segregation shaped me; education liberated me.
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.
I couldn't tell fact from fiction,Or if the dream was trueMy only sure predictionIn 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.
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.
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.