Maya Angelou

b 4 April 1928

American poet and writer, who uses autobiography to illustrate and challenge traditional forms and political and social issues.

 

Life loves the liver of it.

Converstaions with Maya A, ed Jeffrey M Elliott

 

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.

Interview in Girl About Town 13 October 1986

 

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, alone even in genders.

Speech, Louisiana, 11 March 1990

 

A rose by any other name will smell as sweet, but a woman called by a devaluing name will only be weakened by the misnomer.

Wouldn't Take Nothing for my Journey Now, 1993

 

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969

 

In all my work what I try to say is that as human beings we are more alike than we are unalike.

 

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