Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelouwas an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth4 April 1928
CitySt. Louis, MO
CountryUnited States of America
kudos to the educators, athletes, dancers, judges, janitors, politicians, artists, actors, writers, singers, poets, and social activist, to all who dare to look at like with humor, determination and respect
...We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. That sounds goody two-shoes, I know, but I believe that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure and time. Less time is crystal. Less than that is coal. Less than that is fossilized leaves. Less than that it's just plain dirt. In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be.
[Librarians] study their field with as much determination and as much delight as open-heart surgeons.
It is not the answer you look for that makes you strong. It's the ways that you take that define who you are and what you can do.
I said, 'Don't worry about it -- I know our culture.'
When it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine any more, there's a rainbow in the clouds,
Look at my life. I'm floating like mercury around the earth. My footprints shine with stardust. All because I love you. All because you love me.
I was thinking about that, about the journeys in the film, journey to the roots, journey to the heart. We're all on journeys.
I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.
My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God - I thank God every time I think of it - I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.
Autobiography is awfully seductive; it's wonderful. Once I got into it, I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass - the slave narrative - speaking in the first-person singular, talking about the first-person plural, always saying 'I,' meaning 'we.'
Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything.
I've conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I've sang and danced at La Scala!
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.