Quote

If the door has been opened and I've been invited, or if I'm not invited and I somehow know I'm supposed to go in there, I put myself together and go in, praying all the while. I try to learn something before I go in. I try to show some respect of the place I'm going into.

Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou
Age: 86 †
Born: 1928
Born: April 4
Died: 2014
Died: May 28
Author
Autobiographer
Comedian
Dancer
Essayist
Film Director
Film Producer
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Politician
St. Louis
Missouri
Marguerite Annie Johnson
Marguerite Johnson
Marguerite Ann Johnson
Marguerite Anne Johnson
Going
Doors
Something
Respect
Show
Invited
Learn
Opened
Shows
Somehow
Place
Supposed
Together
Praying
Trying
Door

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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I have need of a friend. There is one and only one who will give the air from his failing lungs for my body's mend. And that one is my love.
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I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life...her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing.
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It's very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years.
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Continue. Be loving and be strong. Be fierce and be kind. And don't give in and don't give up.'
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Hope is born again in the faces of children.
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I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.
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I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.
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I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
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Had I not had my grandmother, who dared to be my rainbow in the clouds, I would have been just another sexually abused barefoot black girl on the roads of Arkansas.
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We need to not be in denial about what we've done, what we've come through. It will help us if we all do that.
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You are the sum total of everything you've seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot- it's all right there.
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We need to remember to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. Not only is it acceptable to be alone at times it is positively to be wished for.....In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God.
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I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK.
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I made the decision to quit show business. Give up the skintight dresses and manicured smiles. The false concern over sentimental lyrics. I would never again work to make people smile inanely and would take on the responsibility of making them think.
Maya Angelou
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I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals.
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If you happen to fall in love with someone in another race, it's more difficult, because you have to translate yourself.
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When I forgive other people, I let them go, I free them from my ignorance. And as soon as I do, I feel lighter, brighter and better.
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My mother raised me, and then freed me.
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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
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I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything.
Maya Angelou