I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou

Having read it

★★★★★

Just brilliant and insightful. Such a good read and, despite what she went through in her early years, it elegantly shows she is a brilliant person and has a legitimate, worthwhile and unique perspective to offer.

A good passage

Any of the boys might have been able to beat him with their fists, but if they did, they’d just have had to do it again the next day, and Bailey [Maya’s brother] never held a brief for fighting fairly. He taught me that once I got into a fight I should ‘grab for the balls right away.’ He never answered when I asked, ‘Suppose I’m fighting a girl?’

A second good passage

She was one of the gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be.

A third good passage

We were alert to the gap separating the written word from the colloquial. We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with “That’s not unusual.” But, in the street, meeting the same situation, we easily said, “It be’s like that sometimes.”