Maya Angelou - Rainbow in the Cloud: The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou

Copyright 2014 by The Estate of Maya Angelou

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House company, New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

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L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN -P UBLICATION DATA
Angelou, Maya.
[Works. Selections]
Rainbow in the Cloud.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8129-9645-6
eBook ISBN 978-0-8129-9646-3
1. Angelou, MayaQuotations. 2. Quotations, American. I. Title.
PS3551.N464A6 2014
818.5409dc23 2014029691

www.atrandom.com

Cover design by Victoria Allen

v3.1

For

Lydia Stuckey

When it looked like the sun
wouldnt shine anymore
God put a rainbow in the clouds.

CHRISTIAN SPIRITUAL

A childs talent to endure stems from her ignorance of alternatives.

Everything of value takes work, particularly relationships. If a mother and daughter dont understand each other, and further dont have sympathy for each others lack of understanding then the task is to build a bridge across the chasm of misunderstanding.

Home is the nest where children are raised and the place where they are the most important inhabitants. In homes in which this is not true, the parents are not making the sacrifices which are necessary.

I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and dragons of home under ones skin, at the extreme corners of ones eyes, and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.

I love my son and I loved him when he was growing up, but I was not in love with him which means that I did not dote and I was willing to make the hard decisions. One should never let the love of ones child prevent or hinder the vital and necessary work of parenting.

If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves.

Independence is a heady draft, and if you drink it in your youth it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter their color; equal in importance no matter their texture.

Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God.

Parents who tell their offspring that sex is an act performed only for procreation do everyone a serious disservice.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

Our young must be taught that racial peculiarities do exist, but that beneath the skin, beyond the differing features, and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike.

The Black child must learn early to allow laughter to fill his mouth or the million small cruelties he encounters will congeal and clog his throat.

The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.

This is no longer my house, it is my home. And because it is my home, I have not only found myself healed of the pain of a broken love affair, but discovered that when something I have written does not turn out as I had hoped, I am not hurt so badly. I find that my physical ailments, which are a part of growing older, do not depress me so deeply. I find that I am quicker to laugh and much quicker to forgive.

What child can resist a mother who laughs freely and often?

When I was young I often wondered how I appeared to people around me, but I never thought to see myself in relation to the entire world.