What is the source for this Maya Angelou quote?

August 29, 2009 9:05 AM

What is the source for this Maya Angelou quote? "We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."
posted by Danila to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

The alleged quote occurs in books only a handful of times, with an attribution to just her name rather than a work, which means it's almost certainly apocryphal. (It was doubtless invented by somebody, but it's extremely unlikely you'd be able to find out who.)
posted by languagehat at 11:24 AM on August 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

I could be way off the mark, but I believe she did a series of quotes for a greeting card company a few years back. (Google tells me that she did, for Hallmark.) Someone sent me that very card - I still have it somewhere. I believe that Angelou wrote it specifically for Hallmark. Well, we've all gotta eat.
posted by different at 1:54 PM on August 29, 2009

Ah, that could well be. Hallmark should institute a search feature...
posted by languagehat at 4:36 PM on August 29, 2009