Life By Maya Angelou Quotes & Sayings

I had to trust life, since I was young enough to believe that life loved the person who dared to live it. I — Maya Angelou

The only way out of something is all the way through it. — Maya Angelou

Life offers us tickets to places which we have not knowingly asked for. — Maya Angelou

This is my life. it is my one time to be me. i want to experience every good thing. — Maya Angelou

Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life. — Maya Angelou

The happy heart runs with the river, floats on the air, lifts to the music, soars with the eagle, hopes with the prayer. — Maya Angelou

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice. — Maya Angelou

Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but don't be reduced by them. Just say, 'That's life.' — Maya Angelou

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass. — Maya Angelou

It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different. — Maya Angelou

What stands out to me most about Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken; it's how she lived her life. She moved through the world with unshakable calm, confidence and a fierce grace. — Oprah Winfrey

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it. — Maya Angelou

I know for sure that love saves me. And that it is here to save us all. I know it's a sense, it's more close to us than air, more loud to us than hearing. I know it. I know that we can sit in it. Yes, love honey, and you know by that, I don't mean mush, or any, I don't mean romance, or sentimentality. I mean something is so, it can raise the dead. It can make a mountain move. I know it. I haven't done it, but i know it. As surely as I'm sitting here. — Maya Angelou

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? — Maya Angelou

Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait. — Maya Angelou

The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story ... — Maya Angelou

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. — Maya Angelou

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops. — Maya Angelou

Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure. — Maya Angelou

At one time in my life, from the time I was seven until I was about 13, I didn't speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn't speak: I had been molested, and I told the name of the molester to my brother who told it to the family. — Maya Angelou

Upon reflection, I marvel that no one saw through me enough to bundle me off to the nearest mental institution. The fact that it didn't happen depended less on my being a good actress than the fact that I was surrounded, as I had been all my life, by strangers. — Maya Angelou

Rev. King continued, chanting, singing his prophetic litany. We were one people, indivisible in the sight of God, responsible to each other and for each other.
We, the black people, the most displaced, the poorest, the most maligned and scourged, we had the glorious task of reclaiming the soul and saving the honor of the country. We, the most hated, must take hate into our hands and by the miracle of love, turn loathing into love. We, the most feared and apprehensive, must take fear and by love, change it into hope. We, who die daily in large and small ways, must take the demon death and turn it into Life.
His head was thrown back and his words rolled out with the rumbling of thunder. We had to pray without ceasing and work without tiring. We had to know evil will not forever stay on the throne. That right, dashed to the ground, will rise, rise again and again. — Maya Angelou

The first step towards immortality is living a life worth remembering, (Bruce Lee)
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. (Oprah)
A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search for that voice can be remarkably difficult. (Melinda Gates)
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. (Maya Angelou) — Edward A. Dreyfus

When old folks laugh,
they consider the promise
of dear painless death, and generously
forgive life for happening
to them. — Maya Angelou

Remember this: When you cross my doorstep, you have already been raised. With what you have learned ... you know the difference between right and wrong. Do right. Don't anybody raise you from the way you have been raised. Know you will have to make adaptations, in love, in relationships, in friends, in society, in work, but don't let anybody change your mind. — Maya Angelou

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. — Maya Angelou

I believe talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no judgment. I think talent is like that. I believe every person is born with talent. — Maya Angelou

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young. — Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou had the ability to glean inspiration out of pain. — The Prophet Of Life

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 commensurate speed. — Maya Angelou

She liberated me from a society that would have had me think of myself as the lower of the low. She liberated me to life. And from that time to this time, I have taken life by the lapels and I have said, "I'm with you, kid. — Maya Angelou

Malcolm stood at the microphone. 'Every person under the sound of my voice is a soldier. You are either fighting for your freedom or betraying the fight for freedom or enlisted in the army to deny somebody else's freedom.' His voice, deep and textured, reached through the crowd, across the street to the tenement windows where listeners leaned half their bodies out into the spring air. 'The black man has been programmed to die. To die either by his own hand, the hand of his brother or at the hand of a blue-eyed devil trained to do one thing: take the black man's life.' The — 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

Life is a gift, and i try to respond with grace and courtesy. — Maya Angelou

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. — Maya Angelou

Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better. — Maya Angelou

Life sometimes gives you a second chance. — Maya Angelou

Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don't understand but something I'm able to harness and use. While electricity remains a mystery, I know I can plug into it and light up a cathedral or a synagogue or an operating room and use it to help save a life. Or I can use it to electrocute someone. Like electricity, creativity makes no judgment. I can use it productively or destructively. The important thing is to use it. You can't use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have. — Maya Angelou

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life. — Maya Angelou

Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself. — Maya Angelou

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. — Maya Angelou

Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you. — Maya Angelou

Why did she want to go to sea and live the rough unglamorous life of a seaman? 'Because they told me Negro women couldn't get in the union. You know what I told them?' I shook my head, although I nearly knew. 'I told them, "You want to bet?" I'll put my foot in that door up to my hip until women of every color can walk over my foot, get in that union, get aboard a ship and go to sea. — Maya Angelou

There have been people in my life who meant me well, taught me valuable lessons, and others who have meant me ill and have given me ample notification that my world is not meant to be all peaches and cream. — Maya Angelou

Try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity. — Maya Angelou

Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening — Maya Angelou

We, the black people, the most displaced, the poorest, the most maligned and scourged, we had the glorious task of reclaiming the soul and saving the honor of the country. We, the most hated, must take hate into our hands and by the miracle of love, turn loathing into love. We, the most feared and apprehensive must take fear and by love, change it into hope. We, who die daily in large and small ways, must take the demon death and turn it into life.-Martin Luther King Jr. — 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

The autobiographer looks at life through the lens of his or her own life and really uses herself or himself as the jumping-off place to examine the social mores and the economic and political climates. In a way, the autobiography becomes history as well as the story of one person, for it becomes the story of a family or the story of the state or nation. — Maya Angelou

The woman who truly intends to live a good life is already living phenomenally since intent is part of the achievement. — Maya Angelou

I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I'm a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself - all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve. — Maya Angelou

Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art. — Maya Angelou