The Wise Words of Maya Angelou. Or Someone, Anyway.

nytimes.com - THIS week the United States Postal Service celebrated the life and work of Maya Angelou, unveiling a stamp with her portrait and a lyrical quotation. Unfortunately, the words on the stamp do not appear to have originally been uttered by the poet. Instead, they come from the children’s book author Joan Walsh Anglund.

Ms. Anglund, 89, graciously called the misattribution of her epigram to Ms. Angelou “interesting.” The line, “A bird doesn’t sing because he has an answer, it sings because he has a song” appeared in her 1967 book of poems, “A Cup of Sun.” (The version on the stamp uses “it” instead of “he.”)