Maya Angelou
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
Biography
About Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist whose seven-volume autobiography, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), transformed American literature. Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, she endured a childhood marked by racial segregation, sexual trauma, and years of voluntary muteness.
She became a dancer, singer, actress, journalist, playwright, and eventually one of the most celebrated poets in American history. In 1993 she delivered her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
Her work is inseparable from the Civil Rights Movement — she was a close friend and collaborator of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
Key Themes
Wisdom
Maya Angelou's Famous Quotes
“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”
Angelou offered this image — rainbow in a cloud — as an invitation to be a source of unexpected brightness in someone''s difficult day. Coming from a woman who survived sexual trauma, racism, and poverty to become one of America''s most celebrated voices, the instruction is not naïve optimism. It is a hard-won conviction that the choice to be a source of light, even briefly, is always available.
“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
— Interview, Psychology Today, 2009
This line appears throughout Angelou''s public speeches as both a personal testimony and a moral instruction. Her own defeats — a silenced childhood, professional setbacks, personal losses — shaped rather than destroyed her. The distinction between encountering defeat and being defeated is, in her framework, a matter of identity: who you decide you are in relation to the obstacles life presents.
“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
— Conversations with Maya Angelou, 1989
Angelou made this observation in multiple contexts as a working poet and author who produced seven autobiographies, five essay collections, and numerous poetry collections. Her point subverts the scarcity model of creative talent: creativity, like love or generosity, is not a finite resource that depletes with use but an expansive one that grows with exercise. The more you write, paint, or make, the more you are capable of making.
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Maya Angelou (1928–2014) was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist whose seven-volume autobiography, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), transformed American literature. Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, she endured a childhood marked by racial segregation, sexual trauma, and years of voluntary muteness. She became a dancer, singer, actress, journalist, playwright, and eventually one of the most celebrated poets in American history. In 1993 she delivered her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Her work is inseparable from the Civil Rights Movement — she was a close friend and collaborator of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Maya Angelou lived 1928 – 2014.
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