i know why the caged birg sings

"I didn't come to stay."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Preface

"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. It is an unnecessary insult."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Preface

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

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 2

"I remember never believing that whites were really real."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 4

"I knew that if a person truly wanted to avoid hell and brimstone, and being roasted forever in the devil's fire, all she had to do was memorize Deuteronomy and follow its teaching, word for word."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 6

"He was a stranger, and if he chose to leave us with a stranger, it was all of one piece."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 9

"I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 10

"There was an army of adults, whose motives and movements I just couldn't understand and who made no effort to understand mine."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 11

"language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone that separates him from the lower animals."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 15

"By the way, Bailey, Mrs. Flowers sent you some tea cookies."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 15

"learning the mid-Victorian values with very little money to indulge them."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 16

"Mrs. Cullinan was right about one thing. My name wasn't Mary."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 16

"I saw Mother Dear."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 17

"One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed... a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 19

"I'd rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than in a nigger's."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 24

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

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 25

"They don't really hate us. They don't know us. How can they hate us? They mostly scared."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 25

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

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 27

"All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 28

"We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 29

"mean and petty and full of pretense."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 30

"How maddening it was to have been born in a cotton field with aspirations of grandeur."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 30

"'This is my daughter' and 'She speaks Spanish.'"

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 30

"He had enjoyed his Mexican holiday, and still was unable to proffer a bit of kindness to the woman who had waited patiently, busying herself with housewifely duties."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 31

"she's a whore."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 31

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

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 31

"I was never again to sense myself to solidly outside the pale of the human race."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 32

"In two months, I had become blasé."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 33

"I left his room because, and only because, we had said all we could say."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 33

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

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 34

"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."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 36