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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Book by Maya Angelou · 48 quotes · I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Children, Life

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Quotes

“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School.”

KnowsLittlesSchoolCertainGoneWorstAwarenessTaughtWillingHigh SchoolIgnorantCagedI Know Why The Caged Bird SingsBeing Ignorant
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“A story went the rounds about a San Franciscan white matron who refused to sit beside a Negro civilian on the streetcar, even after he made room for her on the seat. Her explanation was that she would not sit beside a draft dodger who was a Negro as well. She added that the least he could do was fight for his country the way her son was fighting on Iwo Jima. The story said that the man pulled his body away from the window to show an armless sleeve. He said quietly and with great dignity, "Then ask your son to look around for my arm, which I left over there.”

MenWayWellsLooksMadeSaidCountryStoriesShowsBodyFightingAsksLeftWhiteRoomsSonArmsDignityWindowRoundsExplanationSeatsCiviliansSleevesYour SonDodgersFighting OnFranciscansIwo Jima
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“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. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.”

IfsInspirationalDiesLeftForceEasierBattleConflictEternalAdultsPressureConstantThreatSurrenderSuperiorsMaturityConformityTeensVagueLeft AloneIndecisionUnknowing
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“Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God. My pretty Black brother was my Kingdom Come.”

IfsLifeInspirationalNeedsChildrenGodMotivationalBlackBrotherLonelySatisfiedKingdomsImaginaryWholenessUnshakableKingdom ComeCaged BirdsI Know Why The Caged Bird SingsLonely Child
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“The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.”

KnowsMenLifeNeedsCountryUseBodyAbleSportsBlackRoomsHeroRacismEthicsGainsBlueTablesDollarsShoesDetermineCollectivesFortyEggsLaughedAppreciatedGhettoIngenuityRobinsCrumbsCadillacsJanitorI Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
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“Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.”

LifeYearsYoungPurposeFoundGrowsGrowing UpGenerationsCrimeYouthEasierHorrorPunishmentIgnorantCommandGuiltyBearableWaveringFacelessOlder GenerationI Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
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“In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric. He must believe that for his ends to be served all things and people can justifiably be shifted about, or that he is the center not only of his own world but of the worlds which others inhabit.”

HonestyEgoAmbitionDishonestyEgocentrism
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“People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.”

GodReligionBeliefWealthPovertyAffluenceI Know Why The Caged Bird SingsMaya Angelou
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“He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education and, even more amazing, no superiority complex since he had succeeded despite that lack. He would say often, "I been to school three years in my life. In Slaten, Texas, times was hard, and I had to help my daddy on the farm." No recriminations lay hidden under the plain statement, nor was there boasting when he said, "If I'm living a little better now, it's because I treats everybody right.”

Morals
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“It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.”

DeathYouthRacismRageI Know Why The Caged Bird SingsMaya Angelou
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“The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.”

BlackFeminismRacismBlack WomenAfrican AmericansBlacksI Know Why The Caged Bird SingsWomen Of ColorMaya AngelouMasculity
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