I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings quotes

nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got.

The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can't. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator cannot.

My pretty Black brother was my Kingdom Come.

Then ask your son to look around for my arm, which I left over there.

Like most children, I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it.

If you ask a Negro where he's been, he'll tell you where he's going.

God is love. Just worry about whether you're being a good girl, then He will love you.

Knowing Momma, I knew that I never knew Momma.

Bailey was the greatest person in my world.

I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.

Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware.

I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

At eleven years old, death is more unreal than frightening.

Sympathy is next to shit in the dictionary, and I can't even read.

Every person I knew had a hellish horror of being “called out of his name.”

And my seven-year-old world humpty-dumptied, never to be put back together again.