Quotes by Maya Angelou

"Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication."

"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."

"We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise!"

"You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, 'I'm a representative.'"

"Courage - you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn't want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself."

"I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it."

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."

"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."

"You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.'"

"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die."

"I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me."

"It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody."

"Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you're the funniest person you've ever heard of."

"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible."

"I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good."

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

"All great achievements require 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'm interested in women's health because I'm a woman. I'd be a darn fool not to be on my own side."

"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."

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope."

"Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more."

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

"I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do."

"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 something back."

"Life loves the liver of it."

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

"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."

"You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive."

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

"The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous."

"The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance."

"If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love."

"At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn't matter. You said, 'That's an American' because there's a readiness to smile and to talk to people."

"I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes."

"I work very hard, and I play very hard. I'm grateful for life. And I live it - I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it."

"I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I'm praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I'm grateful that I'm heard."

"The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed."