I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou QUOTATION: ... 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.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), African American poet, autobiographer, and performer. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 18 (1970).

QUOTATION: The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author, poet. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 29 (1969).

QUOTATION: My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), African American poet, autobiographer, and performer. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 19 (1970).

QUOTATION: Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author, poet. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 4 (1969).

QUOTATION: Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author, poet. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 17 (1969).

QUOTATION: At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author, poet. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 31 (1969).

QUOTATION: Then the question began to live under my blankets: How did lesbianism begin? What were the symptoms? The public library gave information on the finished lesbian—and that woefully sketchy—but on the growth of a lesbian, there was nothing. I did discover that the difference between hermaphrodites and lesbians was that hermaphrodites were “born that way.” It was impossible to determine whether lesbians budded gradually, or burst into being with a suddenness that dismayed them as much as it repelled society.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, vol. 1, ch. 35 (1969).

QUOTATION: People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate.
ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), African American poet, autobiographer, and performer. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, ch. 8 (1970).

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