“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.” – Maya AngelouĢ. 'By the time she became the impressive public speaker that people remember, she had lived through decades of penury, decades of various betrayals: She knew how unkind people could be, but her message in her dynamic lectures remained positive.1. 'People took advantage of her in the usual ways - so she had learned to be suspicious of motives,' says Wagner-Martin, acknowledging all the jobs Angelou worked to support herself and her son. But this was a lesson that likely reared its head many times over the course of her life. The incident scared Angelou deeply and convinced her that he was, indeed, mean and ornery. Weeks later, he purposefully stopped on railroad tracks while Angelou was in the car, taking off just in time to narrowly miss an approaching train. In context, Angelou was referring to a man named Phil, who said that he was ornery and a crazy liar when he met her. This quote appeared in Angelou's sixth autobiography, 'A Song Flung Up to Heaven,' which chronicles her life between 19. Let's delve deeper into the life of this renowned author, using five of her most memorable quotes.

'Maya Angelou reminds us all of our better selves,' says Wagner-Martin.

'I am the dream and the hope of the slave,' said Jackson, referencing a line in Angelou's poem 'Still I Rise.' Linda Wagner-Martin, author of the books ' Maya Angelou: Adventurous Spirit' and ' The Life of the Author: Maya Angelou,' notes that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson quoted Angelou at the White House after her recent Supreme Court confirmation. media without hitting one of the late author's quotes.ĭr.

Angelou's words are so resonant that you can't throw a stone in U.S. She earned dozens of honorary degrees a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a legacy that has endured in class curricula, contemporary Black feminist writers, and even internet memes. The success of that first memoir spurred Angelou to write six more autobiographies, in addition to three books of essays, several books of poetry, plays, screenplays and even two cookbooks.

Maya angelou quotes