The writer and poet Maya Angelou died last week at the age of 86. I loved her books and her poetry, but most of all I loved the inspiring maxims by which she lived her life – here was a woman who had seen the darkest side of human nature, but had flourished through her courage and her wisdom. A child of the depression, she grew up in the segregated South, survived childhood rape, became a teenage mother and at one time was a prostitute. She was also a playwright and a professor, a singer, a songwriter and an activist. Her son described her as ‘a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace’.

When I get down or dissatisfied or disheartened I remind myself of one of these:

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‘I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

‘I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.’

‘I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.’

‘I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.’

‘I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.’

‘Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.’

‘Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.’

‘The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.’

‘You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise!’

‘Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honour their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is ageing.’

‘When you learn, teach, when you get, give.’

‘We need much less than we think we need.’

‘First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.’

‘If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.’

‘Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.’

I end with the last as a lead-in to a beef. So Michael Gove has decided that To Kill A Mockingbird, Of Mice And Men and the play The Crucible, are not worth having on the GCSE syllabus. In English, yes, but not English enough having been written on the wrong side of The Atlantic. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! These three books, all read for pleasure – not for school – in my own teens taught me lasting lessons about racism and prejudice, about what it means to be dispossessed and how easily democracy can be undermined by fanaticism, all wrapped up in tales compulsively told with characters you could believe in. I’ve never known a kid to find these books boring. I’ve seen plenty fall asleep with a giant Dickens tome in their hand at an age when that reading habit, as Angelou said, needs to be ingrained.

So we lose Angelou. And Harper Lee, John Steinbeck and Arthur Miller. But their words live on.

GH features writer Moya Sarner remembers her favourite quotes from Maya Angelou

If you're a fan of Maya Angelou's writing you may like some of our reader recommended books

Read Linda Kelsey's previous blogs here: The Age of Unreason

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