Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life. — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I write some country music. There's a song called 'I Hope You Dance.' Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“Sugar cane reach up to God And every baby crying Shame the blanket of my night And all my days are dying” — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“Will I be less dead because I wrote this poem or you more because you read it long years hence.” — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart. — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber...… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right. — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“It may be enough, however, to have it said that we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets (include… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight. — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
The subject of the poem usually dictates the rhythm or the rhyme and its form. Sometimes, when you finish the poem and… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Poetry and music are the best at the highest level of the human mind. Out of poetry, out of their need for… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Depending on who I am talking about or who's talking through me - if the person is a kind of hip-hop, or… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I like to go back and read poems that I wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I've always written. There's a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“ Caged Bird A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still,… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses. Flood waters await… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“When Great Trees Fall When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“Poetry is music for the human voice. Until you actually speak it or someone speaks it, it has not come into its… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Listen to some good poetry. You see? It keeps us from thinking we are only what our blatant appetites describe us as. — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Kudos to the educators, athletes, dancers, judges, janitors, politicians, artists, actors, writers, singers, poets, and social activist, to all who dare to… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“ A Conceit Give me your hand Make room for me to lead and follow you beyond this rage of poetry. Let… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I think all poems are commissioned. They just come to me without somebody outside commissioning them. The idea comes and I will… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
There are those who say that poets should use her and his art to change the world. I'd agree with that, but… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“Cotton rows crisscross the world And dead-tired nights of yearning Thunderbolts on leather strops And all my body burning Sugar cane reach… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I've had people explain to me what one of my poems meant, and I've been surprised that it means that to them.… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Courage: the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“You are very kind and very intelligent and those elements are not always found together. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, and my… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
I agreed a long time ago, I would not live at any cost. If I am moved or forced away from what I think… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Intelligence is a separate gift, for the benefit of students, so that they may think of themselves as intellectual and not very intelligent, or… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
“You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust,… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Life offers us tickets to places which we have not knowingly asked for. — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
