Maya Angelou On Writing Quotes & Sayings

To merely search the Scriptures is to come to the tree of knowledge; to contact the Lord through the Word is to come to the tree of life. — Witness Lee

Soon, he can hear Nathen's breathing, slight little snores. But Alex refuses to let sleep take him. He wants to stay awake, he wants to drink in every last moment of their first night together. — Martin Wilson

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication. — Maya Angelou

The idea of transformation is super-important to me. You can see it in the way I approach things. I have never been a clean-faced, freshly scrubbed hair person. I'm the New York designer who doesn't do that. I think about the hair and makeup almost as much as I think about the clothes because it all has to work. — Jason Wu

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks 'the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,'.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I'm writing, I write. And then it's as if the muse is convinced that I'm serious and says, 'Okay. Okay. I'll come. — Maya Angelou

I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use. — Maya Angelou

We are shallow because our media are so horribly shallow. Every morning, I peruse the papers, and there is so little to read in them. It is the same with radio - all that noise, that artifice. — F. Sionil Jose

To be able to achieve the laudable goals (of preventing and treating HIV/AIDS), especially for us in sub-Saharan Africa, there is the need for us to invest in improving our weak health systems. The inadequate number of healthcare facilities in many of our countries are major issues of concern. — John Dramani Mahama

Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds. — Rene Daumal

Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake. — Maya Angelou

Having someone this male next to her made her soul feel exhilarated and convey brazenly suggestive, female, liberal ideas to her inner id. — Missy Lyons

I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people. — Maya Angelou

I will write on the pages of history what I want them to say. I will be myself. I will speak my own name. — Maya Angelou

Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader. — Maya Angelou

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. — Maya Angelou

America's liberal arts universities have long been safe zones for leftist thinking, protected ivory towers for the pseudo-elite who earn their livings writing papers nobody reads about gender roles in the poetry of Maya Angelou. — Ben Shapiro

My favourite job hands down - and I think I can speak for everyone involved - was 'Breaking Bad.' — Aaron Paul

I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition
about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive. — Maya Angelou

That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life ... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt? — Ariel Gore

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language. — Maya Angelou

I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing. — Maya Angelou

I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music. — Maya Angelou

You never get over the fear of writing. — Maya Angelou

I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer. — Fred Savage

I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people. — Maya Angelou

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry - writing at writing. — Maya Angelou

Then she smiles, and it turns out she has dimples, and it's all over. — Amie Kaufman

The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so
concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities. — Jessie Bernard

Is your country under great dangers? Light is gone and the darkness is everywhere? You don't know whom to trust and what to do? Read the history of your country! There you will find out the best map for the way out! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I'll probably be writing when the Lord says, 'Maya, Maya Angelou, it's time. — Maya Angelou

Every experience shapes your writing, being stuck in a car on a lonely bridge, or dancing at a prom, being the it girl on the beach, all of those things influence your life, they influence how you write, and the topics you choose to write about. — Maya Angelou

Believe in your God-given dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

One of the problems we have as writers is we don't take ourselves seriously while writing; being serious is setting aside a time and saying if it comes, good; if it doesn't come, good, I'll just sit here. — Maya Angelou

When I'm writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. — Maya Angelou

When the storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us that human beings are more alike than unalike ... A story is what it's like to be a human being-to be knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of us has arisen, awakened. We do rise. — Maya Angelou

Putting down on paper what you have to say is an important part of writing, but the words and ideas have to be shaped and cleaned, cleaned as severely as a dog cleans a bone, cleaned until there's not a shred of anything superfluous. — Maya Angelou

I'm the out-of-court jester who won't settle, I up the vigilante, I'm a law unto myself but break it anyway! I made a forced landing on the Moebius Strip and now I want to know, which side are you on? — Bob Black

It's so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I've never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything. — Maya Angelou

My progression into acting was pretty slow. I was constantly performing in different kinds of small shows. One year I would be in a magic show, the next year in a circus show, then a small play, and then a dance show. — Roberto Aguire

I also wear a hat or a very tightly pulled head tie when I write. I suppose I hope by doing that I will keep my brains from seeping out of my scalp and running in great gray blobs down my neck, into my ears, and over my face. — Maya Angelou