quotations

Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

"One Christmas we received gifts from our mother and father, who lived separately in a heaven called California, where we were told they could have all the oranges they could eat. And the sun shone all the time." (p 42)

"Bailey and Mother encouraged me to take dance, and he privately told me that the exercise would make my legs big and widen my hips. I needed no greater inducement." (p 184)

"I wanted to be a woman, but that seemed to me to be a world to which I was to be eternally refused entrance. What I needed was a boyfriend. A boyfriend would clarify my position to the world and, even more important, to myself. A boyfriend's acceptance of me would guide me into that strange and exotic land of frills and femininity." (p 238)