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.

In spite of everything that was done to me and my race, in spite of the adversity and the bitter moments, again we rise.

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

Nathaniel Hawthorne once said that easy reading is damn hard writing.

Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

By no amount of agile exercising of a wistful imagination could my mother have been called lenient. Generous she was; indulgent never. Kind, yes, permissive, never. In her world, people she accepted paddled their own canoes, pulled their own weight, put their own shoulders to their own plows and pushed like hell.

Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work.