Maya Angelou Quotes

It's one of the worst nightmare situations we could create for a young character, having the people who are supposed to believe in you keep telling you you're nothing.

Using words to make other people less big made me feel bigger, though the psychological dimension to that... well, I don't want to explore it.

I was made to believe there's something wrong with me.

I'm always disappointed when people don't live up to their potential. I know that a number of people look down on themselves and consequently on everybody who looks like them. But that, too, can change.

A game one of my sisters will play with me in my first year of being alive is called Good Baby, Bad Baby. This consists of being told I am a good baby until I smile and laugh, then being told I am a bad baby until I burst into tears. This training will stand me in good stead all through my life.

If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible.

I have this theory- that if we're told we're bad, then that's the only ideal we'll ever have.

I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it.

You build up the opponent, and you lose confidence.

Believe in yourself. You are enough.

When you grow up with constantly being told or made to feel that you are less than, then it's very difficult to grow into an adult and to shake that off.

Being called ugly every day is not easy on the psyche.

And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they'll never stop doing, I think it's FEARLESS to stop believing them. It's FEARLESS to say "you're NOT sorry" and walk away.

Most people settle because they don't like themselves enough.

She stroked my hair and told me I was beautiful, but I was old enough by then to know not to believe it anymore.

You made me insecure, Told me I wasn't good enough.

His specialty was interrogation. Imagine it, gentlemen. Being strapped to a table so that you are entirely at the mercy of a monster such as this. A person who delights in your pain. A person to whom your screams are more delicious than a lover's whisper. A creature who knows how to keep you alive while he skillfully and meticulously deconstructs those things that define you as human?

When I get the strength to leave, you always tell me that you need me. And I'm weak cause I believe you and I'm mad because I love you. So I stop and think that maybe you could learn to appreciate me, and it all remains the same that you ain't never gonna change.

What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.

I masturbate 'cause I'm the only one whose standards are low enough to f-k me.

Horrible experiences lead us to wonder whether the person who experiences them might not be something horrible.

Tal told me he loved me, and told me and told me, but you don't tell someone that and then tell them they're not experienced enough in bed and should read a book or something to learn, or they should try wearing deep-red lipstick and tight skirts to look hot like their best friend once in a while. If Tal hadn't lied to me when he said he loved me, I might not be without a future right now, a sucker who was so chickenshit she allowed herself to believe a false dream from a false god. I'm not sure I ever even liked Tal, much less loved him.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you tell kids they're stupid--directly or indirectly--sooner or later they start to believe it.

I believe I'm enough, you know what I'm saying?

I used to want to kill myself because I had lost so much of who I knew I was because of all the other invalidation from people. It sends you spiraling where you're like, Wait, I know I have this quality, I know what my integrity is - until you're being fed all this false information about yourself. You start to wonder why. You don't feel good about yourself because you no longer believe in yourself.