Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Annie Johnson, 1928–2014) wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and read at a presidential inauguration, and she is now one of the most misquoted writers alive or dead. The reason is specific: she genuinely did write short, direct, second-person counsel about self-respect, so a sentence in that register slides under her name without resistance. She also has a real line on almost exactly this territory — people will forget what you said, but never how you made them feel — which primes readers to accept another. The estate of a writer who died in 2014 controls her work for decades to come, which makes getting the attribution right a practical matter and not just a scholarly one.