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Maya Angelou Quotes

Browse 17 quotes about Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou Quotes

“Late October Carefully the leaves of autumn sprinkle down the tinny sound of little dyings and skies sated of ruddy sunsets of roseate dawns roil ceaselessly in cobweb greys and turn to black for comfort. Only lovers see the fall a signal end to endings a gruffish gesture alerting those who will not be alarmed that we begin to stop in order to begin again.”

LoveDesirePoetryRelationshipsBeginningEndingCycleMaya Angelou
Book:The Poetry of Maya Angelou
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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
Book:I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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“Maya Angelou spoke of why the caged bird sings and of the courage it takes for literature to crush racism and face trauma. Angelou said the caged bird sings when his wing is bruised and he beats his bars to be free, here’s hoping that every cage be broken through and every bruised wing be healed by the joy of freedom so that it could soar. There are no gardens in prison for the poet to see yet his words make the cage bloom.”

ArtPrisonIsraelWritersFreedom Of SpeechPalestineGazaMaya AngelouWhy The Caged Bird Sings
Author:Aysha Taryam
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“Joining her at the table, Liz said, “They’re ever-changing. Swirling, dilating, expanding. To look at, you’d think they hardly move at all, but they actually travel at around a hundred miles an hour.” She took Naomi’s hands in hers again. “We are never stuck, my love. We’re always moving towards something, whether we see it or not. And yes, sometimes we’re forced to bear the greyness of life, but eventually the sun shines through us again.” She smiled, her pink papery cheeks resembling the inside of a rose. “As Maya Angelou once said, ‘Every storm runs out of rain’.”

LifeLife PhilosophyCloudsStormDomestic AbuseMaya Angelou
Book:Overflowing Nothings and Threadbare Everythings
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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
Book:I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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“When Great Trees Fall When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves. And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”

LifeWritingSoulDeathPoetryPeacePoetPoemPoemsWritersPoetsTreesSoulsMaya AngelouAmerican WritersI Shall Not Be MovedWhen Great Trees Fall
Author:Maya 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
Book:I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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“Maya Angelou entered our lives at Virago in 1984, when we first published I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. "Entered our lives" is too tame. She danced, sang, and laughed her way straight into our hearts. She brought us a best-seller, but more than that, she brought us a reminder that the human need for dignity and recognition is a gift easily given to one another, but also frighteningly easy to withhold.”

InspirationalSpiritualPoetrySprintMaya Angelou
Author:Lennie Goodings
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“Black women - the world knows that we are strong because our strength is legendary. We are Harriet Tubman, Michelle Obama, and Rosa Parks. We are Oprah Winfrey, Nanny, and Mae Jameson. We are Shirley Chisholm, Portia Simpson and Maya Angelou. We have birthed a nation, rescued slaves, built empires, traveled to space and written our place in history. Survival is not enough; we were built to rise.”

Survival QuotesRise QuotesWomen Empowerment QuotesMaya AngelouMichelle ObamaOprah WinfreyRosa ParksJanet Autherine
Book:The Heart and Soul of Black Women: Poems of Love, Struggle and Resilience
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