American - Poet | April 4, 1928 - May 28, 2014
I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes.
Maya Angelou
TeacherWhoWriterWritesTeaches
I've never had a dislike for men. I've been badly treated by some. But I've been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.
MenLovedNeverDislikeBeenSome
I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.'
GirlTruthBlackYouKnowWant
I was born in St. Louis but lived there just for a few minutes in my life.
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I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine... before she realizes she's reading.
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I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that.
LifeAloneGreatArtSayingKnow
The language of all the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian Bible, is musical, just wonderful. I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.
BeautifulMyselfBibleLanguageTake
Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up.
TruthChildrenPeopleGrowHonor
I've conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I've sang and danced at La Scala!
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Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
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If you want what you're saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody's life. Your own, first.
LifeTimeSayingYouSayWant
Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber... they're listening to poetry.
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