I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings quotes

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.

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

The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.

She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be.

See, you don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.

Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or the empty pots made less tragic by your tales?

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.

It seemed terribly unfair to have a toothache and a headache and have to bear at the same time the heavy burden of Blackness.

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.

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

But bear in mind, language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

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.

I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race.

hoped for the best, was prepared for the worst, so anything in between didn't come as a surprise.

During these years in Stamps, I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first white love.

You ask for what you want, and you pay for what you get.

all knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market.

we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets (include preachers, musicians and blues singers).

Champion of the world. A Black boy. Some Black mother's son. He was the strongest man in the world.

She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.

She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.

Can't do is like Don't Care. Neither of them have a home.