Extended excerpt:

[Excerpt from the start of Angelou’s response to a question: “Didn’t you feel that sometimes you had to prove yourself: Feeling rejected by your mother, having to go through the traumas of being rejected and not being able to reach her, feeling that cold core that you couldn’t reach. Did you feel bitter?”]

“Bitterness is a different word. Anger. Bitterness is like a cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” (p. 220)

Re-quote note: A similar statement can be found in another Conversations with Maya Angelou interview after Angelou was asked, “Do you feel bitter about your experiences?”

Angelou’s response: “No, I get angry, which keeps me from being bitter. There’s an absolute difference. Bitterness is like cancer, it just stays with you and eats and eats and it comes out like lashes, like putrescent explosions.” (p. 42)

Source: Library – Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0878053611

Extended excerpt: [Memoir]

“Looking through the years, I marvel that Saturday was my favorite day of the week. What pleasures could have been squeezed between the fan folds of unending tasks? Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.” (p.17)

Source: Editor’s copy – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969|2009 Random House edition) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 978-0-8129-8002-8

Extended excerpt: [Interview – excerpt of Angelou’s response to the question “What was [Dr. Martin Luther] King really like, personally?]

Source link: “Maya Angelou Interview” (2000) Academy of Achievement: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ang0int-2

Extended excerpt: [Excerpt of Angelou poem, which she read during President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration ceremony in Washington, D.C.]

“History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, but if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon

The day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.

Women, children, men,

Take it into the palms of your hands,

Mold it into the shape of your most

Private need.

Sculpt it into

The image of your most public self.”

Source link: “Maya Angelou Inaugural Poem” (20 January 1993) C-SPAN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4499362/maya-angelou-inaugural-poem

Extended excerpt: [From book introduction]

“You may not control all events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.” (p. 1)

Source: Library – Like It Is: Arthur E. Thomas Interviews Leaders on Black America (1981) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-525-93193-7

Extended excerpt: [Interview – From a portion of Angelou’s discussion about American civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]

“I don’t think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop modesty in a minute. You see, it’s a learned affectation. But humility comes from inside out. Humility says there was someone before me, someone found the path, someone made the road before me, and I have the responsibility of making the road for someone who is yet to come. Dr. King was really humble so that he was accessible to everybody.”

Source link: “Maya Angelou Interview” (2000) Academy of Achievement: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ang0int-2

Extended excerpt: [Interview response]

“It is only an education that liberates. Education helps one cease being intimidated by strange situations. Once you have it in your mind, you can go anywhere. You see? I encourage young people to read Shakespeare, Leroi Jones, Sonia Sanchez, Charles Dickens, Robespierre – in French – read. Read.” (p. 13)

Source: Library – Like It Is: Arthur E. Thomas Interviews Leaders on Black America (1981) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-525-93193-7

Extended excerpt: [Interview – From a portion of Angelou’s discussion about American civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]

“I don’t think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop modesty in a minute. You see, it’s a learned affectation. But humility comes from inside out. Humility says there was someone before me, someone found the path, someone made the road before me, and I have the responsibility of making the road for someone who is yet to come. Dr. King was really humble so that he was accessible to everybody.”

Source link: “Maya Angelou Interview” (2000) Academy of Achievement: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ang0int-2