67 quotes
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
A Brave and Startling Truth (1995)
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
A Brave and Startling Truth (1995)
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?
And Still I Rise (1978)
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Glory falls around us
as we sob
a dirge of
desolation on the Cross
and hatred is the ballast of
the rock
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)
I have need of a friend. There is one and only one
who will give the air
from his failing lungs
for my body's mend. And that one is my love.
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
And Still I Rise (1978)
My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped.
Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him.
We Had Him (2009)
We delight in the beauty of butterfly, rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty*
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.
We Had Him (2009)
All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the woman, to the man, to the old person, to the semiliterate, to the presidents of universities, to everyone. It should be open.
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
And Still I Rise (1978)
When people talk about American literature, they really mean Hemingway, Faulkner and Poe and when they do include women it's Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. To decide to take that on and say, 'I will speak and will be heard'-that takes a lot of guts.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
And Still I Rise (1978)
God put the rainbow in the clouds, not just in the sky… It is wise to realize we already have rainbows in our clouds, or we wouldn't be here. If the rainbow is in the clouds, then in the worst of time, there is the possibility of seeing hope … We can say "I can be a rainbow in the cloud for someone yet to be." That may be our calling.
A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. ... Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.
Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976)
I went to sleep last night
And I arose with the dawn,
I know that there are others
Who're still sleeping on,
They've gone away,
You've let me stay,
I want to thank You.
And Still I Rise (1978)
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. (1982; quoted in the Introduction by Jeffrey M. Elliot)
Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)