Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I do like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. But I like - if somebody is going to come into my house and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them. "

Maya Angelou

House

Guns

Welcome

Related Quotes:

" I got my own back. "

" There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth. "

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

" When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. "

" If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love. "

" How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times. "

" I know that I've been guided by God. I am obedient. "

" I've read everything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote; my brother and I memorized whole chapters of 'You Can't Go Home Again' and 'Look Homeward, Angel.' "

" I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money.' Yes, I think everybody should be paid handsomely; I insist on it, and I pay people who work for me, or with me, handsomely. "

" Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more. "

" I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss. "

Maya Angelou

Knowledge

Loss

" If you're a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don't understand talent any more than we understand electricity. "

" At one time in my life, from the time I was seven until I was about 13, I didn't speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn't speak: I had been molested, and I told the name of the molester to my brother who told it to the family. "

" Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. "

" I could fall in love with a sumo wrestler if he told stories and made me laugh. Obviously, it would be easier if someone was African-American and lived next door and went to the same church. Because then I wouldn't have to translate. "

" The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama's entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly. "

" That's the biggest gift I can give anybody: 'Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you're doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.' "

" I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right. "

" In all my work, I try to say - 'You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?' "

" My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style. "

" The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed. "

" I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me. "

" 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. "

" I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles. "

" Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language. "

Maya Angelou

Work

Book

" I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me. "

" The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart. "

" There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. "

" I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. "

" I like chicken a lot because chicken is generous - that is to say, it's obedient. It will do whatever you tell it to do. "