I was a dancer for many years. I was a premier dancer with ‘Porgy and Bess,’ the opera. And I taught dance some, in different places.
Category Archive: Maya Angelou
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 want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine… before she realizes she’s reading.
It’s good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.’
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.
We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.
A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.