If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
Maya Angelou
Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.
Maya Angelou
We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.
Maya Angelou
I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.
Maya Angelou
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
Maya Angelou
If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Maya Angelou
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Maya Angelou
The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.
Maya Angelou
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
Maya Angelou
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
Maya Angelou
A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.
Maya Angelou
It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.
Maya Angelou
My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.
Maya Angelou
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou
If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.
Maya Angelou
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
Maya Angelou
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
I’m just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.
Maya Angelou
While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.
Maya Angelou
All great achievements require time.
Maya Angelou
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.
Maya Angelou
It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.
Maya Angelou
Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, ‘Children’s Letters to God.’ You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, ‘Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.’
Maya Angelou
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
Maya Angelou
Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear.
Maya Angelou
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou
We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.
Maya Angelou
The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.
Maya Angelou
There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
Maya Angelou
I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.
Maya Angelou
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
Maya Angelou
I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.
Maya Angelou
In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.
Maya Angelou
There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.
Maya Angelou
I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.
Maya Angelou
Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.
Maya Angelou
In all my work, I try to say – ‘You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?’
Maya Angelou
I could fall in love with a sumo wrestler if he told stories and made me laugh. Obviously, it would be easier if someone was African-American and lived next door and went to the same church. Because then I wouldn’t have to translate.
Maya Angelou
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
Maya Angelou
The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou
How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
Maya Angelou
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.
Maya Angelou
Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright’s pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.
Maya Angelou
I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don’t allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday.
Maya Angelou