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Who really said it

I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better

Not Angelou’s wording — a first-person rewrite Maya Angelou 1928–2014 · American memoirist, poet & civil-rights activist
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The idea is genuinely Angelou’s — but this is not how she said it. Every documented version addresses someone else — none is first person: private counsel she gave Oprah Winfrey, first reported when Winfrey recounted it on air — “You did then what you knew how to do and when you knew better you did better.” Quote Investigator ↗ dates that remark to 1995 and traces only second-person forms; the “I did then… I do better” version appears nowhere in its investigation, and we found no source for it either.

Last verified 29 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better” widely credited to Maya Angelou, but no source documents this wording. What is documented is second person: "You did then what you knew how to do and when you knew better you did better," as Oprah Winfrey recounted Angelou's private advice to her (Jet, 30 January 1995). Investigated by Quote Investigator, 30 November 2022.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of Maya Angelou — American memoirist, poet & civil-rights activist. Theme: "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it really comes from

Popular wording
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
Documented wording
“You did then what you knew how to do and when you knew better you did better.”
Reported in
‘Oprah Reveals On Her Show She Smoked Crack Cocaine During Her 20s,’ Jet, 30 January 1995
Said by
Maya Angelou (1928–2014), as quoted by Oprah Winfrey

[Oprah Winfrey, on air, recalling what Angelou said after she confessed her shame:] “You did then what you knew how to do and when you knew better you did better.” ↑ second person, past tense — consolation offered to someone else, not a statement about oneself

Winfrey said the words came from Angelou after she shared her “great shame” over having smoked crack cocaine in her twenties, and that the response turned her life around. The wording shifts between retellings — the Washington Post report drops ‘then,’ and Wikiquote’s version reads ‘You did in your twenties what you knew how to do’ — which is itself a sign that no fixed primary text exists.

Quote Investigator: the full investigation

The paper trail

  • Quote Investigator ↗ concludes that the shorter saying ‘If you know better you should do better’ was circulating by 1958, with variants earlier, and that Oprah Winfrey credited Maya Angelou with the longer remark in 1995 — the version it prints is “You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better.”
  • Wikiquote lists the line among Angelou’s quotations as “You did in your twenties what you knew how to do, and when you knew better you did better,” sourced only ‘as quoted by Oprah Winfrey,’ and notes it is “often misquoted” as ‘Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better’ — see Maya Angelou on Wikiquote ↗.
  • The first-person version that circulates online carries no source whatsoever: Goodreads files it under its own ‘attributed-no-source’ and ‘unsourced’ tags, with no book named — the entry ↗.
  • Winfrey repeated the credit to Angelou in her 2014 collection What I Know for Sure (Quote Investigator cites the chapter ‘Power,’ p. 191); the book is scanned at the Internet Archive ↗.

No copyright status can be asserted for the popular first-person wording, because no source for it has ever been identified. The line Angelou is documented as saying reached print in January 1995 news reporting (Jet and The Washington Post) and is therefore not in the public domain — quote it briefly, with attribution.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The wording problem

This one is unusual. The thought really does trace to Maya Angelou — but the sentence people share is not a sentence anyone has documented her saying. Along the way it changed person, tense and purpose.

“I did then what I knew how to do…” rewrite

Angelou’s documented words are second person — advice to Winfrey, not a statement about herself. Quote Investigator’s investigation ↗ traces only second-person forms and never addresses the first-person version at all, and the first-person line sits in quote databases with nothing behind it — tagged ‘unsourced’ on Goodreads ↗.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” misquote

Wikiquote ↗ lists this among the forms the line is “often misquoted” as, alongside ‘When you know better, do better’ and ‘When you know better, you do better.’

Oprah Winfrey amplifier

Winfrey is the reason the line is famous and is sometimes named as its author — but she credited Angelou both times she used it, on air in 1995 and in her 2014 book What I Know for Sure, as Quote Investigator documents ↗.

Phil McGraw, Gary Zukav, Ernest Rogers not the origin

McGraw’s 1999 Life Strategies quotes the line and credits Angelou directly, and columnist Ernest Rogers used the shorter ‘if you know better you should do better’ in 1958 — Quote Investigator ↗ examined each of these attributions.

Bottom line: the counsel is Angelou’s, the sentence is not. What is documented — through Winfrey’s 1995 retelling, as traced by Quote Investigator ↗ — is “You did then what you knew how to do and when you knew better you did better.” The first-person version has no source at all.

Context

Why it resonates

The line entered the culture through a confession. In 1995 Oprah Winfrey told her television audience about the shame she felt over her “dark secret” — that she had smoked crack cocaine in her twenties — and said what steadied her was Angelou’s response: that she had done then what she knew how to do, and did better once she knew better. Angelou, whom Winfrey called her ‘mother-sister-friend’ and who dedicated her 1993 essay collection Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now to her, was speaking privately, as a mentor, about someone else’s shame.

The rewrite changes what the sentence does. Flipped into the first person — ‘I did then… now that I know better, I do better’ — it stops being consolation you offer to someone else and becomes an affirmation you say about yourself. That shift is probably why the rewrite travelled further than the original: anyone can use it. It is also why the words cannot honestly be presented as Angelou’s.

She said it about someone else. The internet turned it into something you say about yourself.

On the ‘disputed’ call

This is filed as disputed rather than attributed because the specific wording appears in no source at all — not in Angelou’s books, not in the January 1995 press reports, not in Winfrey’s own later retellings. That is a stronger objection than ‘paraphrase’: the grammatical person, the tense and the rhetorical function have all changed.

Even the documented wording is unstable, which tells you there is no fixed primary text: The Washington Post report has “You did what you knew how to do,” Jet has “You did then what you knew how to do,” and Wikiquote carries “You did in your twenties what you knew how to do.” All three are Winfrey remembering a private conversation, not Angelou on the record.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Growth Wisdom Knowledge

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator — the full investigationquoteinvestigator.com

Traces both circulating versions, dates the longer Angelou-credited remark to 1995, and cites related earlier wordings from 1910 and 1958.
Maya Angelou — Wikiquotewikiquote.org

Carries the second-person line sourced only to Oprah Winfrey’s retelling, with a note listing the forms it is “often misquoted” as.
The first-person wording, unsourcedgoodreads.com

The popular version as it actually circulates: credited to Angelou, no book or source named, tagged ‘attributed-no-source’ and ‘unsourced’.
Maya Angelou — Wikipediawikipedia.org

Life dates (1928–2014), career, and her mentorship of Oprah Winfrey, whom she met in the late 1970s and to whom she dedicated her 1993 essay collection.
Oprah Winfrey — Wikipediawikipedia.org

Confirms Winfrey’s account of having smoked crack cocaine and that she considered Angelou her mentor and ‘mother-sister-friend’.
What I Know for Sure (2014) — Internet Archivearchive.org

Borrowable scan of Winfrey’s 2014 collection (Flatiron Books), the volume Quote Investigator cites for her repeating the credit to Angelou.

The source of the thought

About Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

1928–2014 · American memoirist, poet & civil-rights activist

Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Annie Johnson, 1928–2014) was an American memoirist, poet and civil-rights activist, best known for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) and for reciting ‘On the Pulse of Morning’ at Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration. She met Oprah Winfrey in the late 1970s, when Winfrey was a television anchor in Baltimore, and became her mentor and close friend — the relationship that produced this quotation, which reached the public as remembered private counsel rather than as published prose. Angelou’s fame has also made her one of the most misquoted writers online, which is exactly why separating her documented words from smoothed rewrites is worth the trouble.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best available source

No primary source documents the first-person wording. The line as documented: “Oprah Reveals On Her Show She Smoked Crack Cocaine During Her 20s,” Jet, 30 January 1995, 51–52 (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company); and Patrice Gaines, “How Oprah’s Confession Tumbled Out,” The Washington Post, 13 January 1995, B1. Investigated in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: You Did What You Knew How To Do, and When You Knew Better, You Did Better,” 30 November 2022.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-did-then-what-i-knew-how-to-do-now-that-i-know-better-i/

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