Maya Angelou Books Quotes & Sayings

I had agreed with her that I should start collecting the Dial records featuring Bird, Max Roach, Al Haig, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie and others who she said were going to be the 'masters.' Each payday I kept out enough money to pay my own way at Mother's, and spent the rest on records and books. Mother — Maya Angelou

She took off her engagement and
wedding rings and walked over to me. "I don't want anything to happen to these while I'm there."
I clasped both of her hands in mine. "It's not the rings I'm worried about."
A faint smile crossed her lips, and even though the face was different, there was a feel to that smile
that was uniquely Sydney. "I'll be fine ... but I want you to hold on to these for me until I get back."
"Deal," I said in a low voice that only she could hear, "but I get to put them back on you."
"Okay," she said.
"On my knees," I added.
"Okay."
"And we both have to be nake - "
"Adrian," she said warningly.
"We'll discuss the terms later," I said with a wink. — Richelle Mead

Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, 'Uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody and they're going to find me out. — Maya Angelou

Everybody kind of has to learn the same lessons. You've got to learn how to get over your first love. You've got to learn how to forgive people that emotionally abuse you. You've got to learn how to let go in a lot of ways. — Weyes Blood

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. — Maya Angelou

Everyone wants to share what he or she has learned with someone who really cares. — Douglas Coupland

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. — T. Colin Campbell

They basked in the righteousness of the poor and the exclusiveness of the downtrodden. Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly
mostly
let them have their whiteness. It was better to be meek and lowly, spat upon and abused for this little time than to spend eternity frying in the fires of hell. No one would have admitted that the Christian and charitable people were happy to think of their oppressors' turning forever on the Devil's spit over the flames of fire and brimstone. — Maya Angelou

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them. — Maya Angelou

That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life ... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt? — Ariel Gore

I can't wait to read it, because I want to know how someone who was abused and raped as a child could grow up to write poems about being phenomenal when something so disgusting and humiliating has happened to her. (Kendra's words upon learning about Maya Angelou and her books I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Phenomenal Woman) — Kamichi Jackson

Music is a light! It can reach anywhere and it can touch anything! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The one who had not ever conceived his own annulment, who had not foreseen the resource of the cord, the bullet, the poison or the sea, is a debased prisoner or a crawling worm on the cosmic carrion. This world can take off us everything, it can forbid us everything, but nobody can't prevent us our self-abolition. — Emil Cioran

Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication. — Algernon Black

The Second Amendment only protects the people who want all the guns they can have. The rest of us, we've got no Second Amendment. What are we supposed to do? — Louise Slaughter

For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books. — Maya Angelou

I found it hard to think of leaving my books. They had been my elevators out of the midden, and to whom could I entrust such close friends? The — Maya Angelou

Trust your feelings never disown your instincts. — N.G. Osborne

When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end. — Anthony Trollope

You can go and visit those places. Nothing there, nothing at all. There are Iraqi checkpoints. Everything is okay. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

I think everything's fair in art and how you perceive a character. — Juan Pablo Di Pace

[Eph. 6:23, 24] Peace to the brothers and sisters,18 and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.19 — Anonymous