I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1) QUOTES

2 " 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 , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

4 " People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

6 " It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

8 " Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

10 " The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

12 " Few, if any, survive their teens. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

14 " When rain comes finally, washing away a low sky of muddy ocher, we who could not control the phenomenon are pressed into relief. The near-occult feeling: The face of being witness to the end of the world gives way to tangible things. Even if the succeeding sensations are not common, they are at least not mysterious. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

16 " At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

18 " Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

20 " I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise. "

― Maya Angelou , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)