Maya Angelou

I wasn’t a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at 15, you know.

Maya Angelou

I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.

Maya Angelou

I will not sit in a room with black people when the N word is used. I know it was meant to belittle a person, so I will not sit there and have that poison put on me. Now a black person can say, ‘Oh, you know, I can use this word because I’m black.’

Maya Angelou

I will write on the pages of history what I want them to say. I will be myself. I will speak my own name.

Maya Angelou

I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.

Maya Angelou

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

Maya Angelou

I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.

Maya Angelou

I would welcome a friendship with Lynne Hinton. I would welcome an invitation to sit down at her table, but mostly I would welcome her next book.

Maya Angelou

I wouldn’t trade anything for my story now.

Maya Angelou

I write because I am a black woman, listening attentively to her people.

Maya Angelou