The person that inspired me throughout most of my childhood was Angela Bassett.
My father constantly reminded me that he named me after Angela Yvonne Davis, a scholar and activist who was well known for her work in tandem with the Black Panther Party. That felt like a purposeful, beckoning call to engage in strategic resistance and to fight for the oppressed.
For me, returning to Los Angeles annihilates the memories of where I have just been with an astonishing speed.
I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'
Having an automobile in Los Angeles enables me to change clothes at least three times a day: I will go from western wear to nautical to Savile Row in the course of 12 hours.
If you saw me in 'The King and I,' I had that angelic, virginal face.
I don't want to be a movie star like Angelina Jolie. Nothing about being a celebrity is desirable. I'm an actor. It's bizarre to me that everybody's so obsessive.
People think I'm goofy. I don't have that Angelina Jolie air to me. I wish that I did, and that's an insecurity of mine.
People compare me to Angelina Jolie, and she's so serious and stoic. I'm the opposite.
I've never been like Angelina Jolie, who at one time was spewing out this prototype Bad Girl stuff for people to consume. I've never boxed myself in that way. People can create boxes for me by all means, but it doesn't mean I'm going to step inside them.
Everybody tells me, 'You're famous.' And I answer, 'I'm not Angelina Jolie!'
Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.
I've conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I've sang and danced at La Scala!
Thank you so much for supporting me from the day I stepped foot into the music industry. It really means something to me to have Maya Angelou speak on my behalf. It also means a lot to have Oprah on my speed dial!
I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.
I'm a California Angels fan because that's the first game my dad took me to see, and they stuck with me.
I know I got angels watchin me from the other side.
I don't like anybody to be angry with me. I'd rather have friends.
Above all things, I must not get angry. If I do get angry I knock all the teeth out of the mouth of the poor wretch who has angered me.
When it came to religion, I felt I belonged to no one. It saddened me, it angered me, it confused me, and it made me religiously ambivalent. So I chose my calling: Cubs baseball.
