Maryam > Maryam's Quotes

“Would a human egg let itself be seen?”
― Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones

“Look how beautifully black we are. And as we dance, I am not Melody who is sixteen, I am not my parents’ once illegitimate daughter—I am a narrative, someone’s almost forgotten story. Remembered.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone

“Unworthy boys make a lot of noise”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' "I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.”
― Dick Gregory

“. . . Love changes and changes. Then it changes again. . .”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone

“Burn it! Burn it. This is where the poems are,” I say, thumping a fist against my chest. “Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too?”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

“She laughed for his sake, something she’d never done. Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Never underrate
the heart,
Capable of deeds
The mind cannot conceive.
The heart dictates as well as feels.
How else can you explain
The path I have taken,
That you have taken
The long way through this pass?”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Sand keeps secrets better than mud.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Please don't talk to me about isolation. No one has to tell me how it changes a person. I have lived it. I am isolation," Kya whispered with a slight edge.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,
of things unknown, but longed for still,
and his tune is heard on the distant hill,
for the caged bird sings of freedom.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“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. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“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.

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.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“The sun will rise no matter what pain we encounter. No matter how much we believe the world to be over, the sun will rise.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, After I Do

“Why do we do this? Why do we undervalue things when we have them? Why is it only on the verge of losing something that we see how much we need it?”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, After I Do

“I love that people think the world is even halfway ready for what we about to bring.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone

“One could come from less than humble beginnings, to become a winner from within.”
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"

“Happiness comes from helping others, by being with others, and by sharing, even if it's only a smile.”
― Zain Hashmi, A Blessed Olive Tree: A Spiritual Journey in Twenty Short Stories

“The world is almost peaceful when you stop trying to understand it.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

“The race of man is suffering And I can hear the moan, ‘Cause nobody, But nobody Can make it out here alone.”
― Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems

“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.”
― Maya Angelou, Poems

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
― Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems

“What's done in the dark always comes to the light.”
― Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones

“Seeing him broke the cocoon of my rib cage, and my heart unfurled to fly.”
― Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones

“The day I met Islam, I found a power within myself that no man could destroy or take away. When I first walked into the mosque, I didn’t find Islam; it found me.”
― Muhammad Ali, The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey

“My wealth is in my knowledge of self, love, and spirituality.”
― Muhammad Ali, The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey