Quotes from Maya Angelou

Last year changed its seasons subtly, stripped its sultry winds for the reds of dying leaves, let gelid drips of winter ice melt onto a warming earth and urged the dormant bulbs to brave the pain of spring. We, loving, above the whim of time, did not notice. Alone. I remember now.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

In that second I was wounded. My mind struck a truth as an elbow can strike a table edge. A poor, uneducated servant in Africa was so secure he could ignore established White rudeness. No Black American I had ever known knew that security. Our tenure in the United States, though long and very hard-earned, was always so shaky, we had developed patience as a defense, but never as aggression.

Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleeve to peer into my eyes while I within deny their threats and answer them with lies

His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol, and age, but his face believed the freshness of his words, and I had no heart nor art to drag him back to the reeking reality of our life and times.

She would have been more surprised than I had she taken me in her arms and wept at losing me. Her world was bordered on all sides with work, duty, religion and her place. I don't think she ever knew that a deep-brooding love hung over everything she touched.

I left the room because, and only because, we had said all we could say. The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no crafts to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness.

Nothing can dim.the light which shines within us

It is sunrise, with Hope its arrogant rider.

Momma wouldn't talk right then, but later in the evening I found that my violation lay in using the phrase by the way. Momma explained that Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Light, and anyone who says by the way is really saying, by Jesus, or by God and the Lord's name would not be taken in vain in her house.