Maya Angelou

Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it; to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other.

I've had rainbows in my clouds.

The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.

She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.

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.

You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.

The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve.

Live as though life was created for you.

No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

Don't let the man bring you down.

I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees.

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.

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound.

I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.

Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away.

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.

There were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing. So you watch yourself about complaining. 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.

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.

Just like moons and suns, With certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

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.

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.