I answer the question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with here in my heart and mind and memories.
Maya Angelou
- Life
- 1928-2014
- Occupations
- politician, dancer, film producer
- Notable works
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, On the Pulse of Morning, And Still I Rise
Facts: Wikidata (CC0), as of 2026-07-09
Maya Angelou is one of the most quoted -- and most misquoted -- writers of the twentieth century. The real canon is deep: seven autobiographies starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the poems Still I Rise and Phenomenal Woman, and On the Pulse of Morning, read at the 1993 presidential inauguration. But the internet has also stapled her name to lines she never wrote. The famous 'people will forget what you said, but never how you made them feel' traces back to Carl W. Buehner in 1971, and 'a bird doesn't sing because it has an answer' belongs to Joan Walsh Anglund. Even the U.S. Postal Service got caught: her 2015 commemorative stamp carried the Anglund line. On this shelf, the flagged ones wear their receipts.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I am with you kid. Let's go!'
Maya Angelou
Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.
Maya Angelou
There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
Just like moons and like suns, / With the certainty of tides, / Just like hopes springing high, / Still I'll rise.
Maya Angelou
I'm a woman / Phenomenally. / Phenomenal woman, / That's me.
Maya Angelou
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill / Of things unknown but longed for still / And his tune is heard on the distant hill / For the caged bird sings of freedom.
Maya Angelou
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou
We are the possible. We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world.
Maya Angelou
If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.
Maya Angelou
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.
Maya Angelou
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
Maya Angelou
The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.
Maya Angelou
Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.
Maya Angelou
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
Maya Angelou
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
Maya Angelou
I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
Maya Angelou
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
Maya Angelou
To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.
Maya Angelou
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently.
Maya Angelou
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Maya Angelou
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.
Maya Angelou
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
Maya Angelou
Every storm runs out of rain.
Maya Angelou
You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
Maya Angelou
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
Maya Angelou