"During these years [age three - age thirteen] in Stamps, I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first love. Although I enjoyed and respected Kipling, Poe, Butler, Thackery and Henley, I saved my young and loyal passion for Paul Lawrence, Dunbar, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. DuBois' 'Litany at Atlanta'. But it was Shakespeare who said, "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes." It was a state with which I felt myself most familiar."

(p. 14)I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou. Copyright 1969, by Maya Angelou.