"When I'm writing, everything shuts down....I don't see Mrs. Cunningham, the housekeeper, or Mrs. Garris, the secretary, or my gentleman friend, nobody....But writing really is my life."
"Many prejudices I think stem from self-loathing. If a person really doesn't approve of himself or herself, then it's better to hate somebody else. So these prejudices, whether implicit or explicit, that keep us apart, are created by someone else and out of someone else's ignorance or whim. I always ask, 'Who made that rule? Who benefits from this? Do I benefit?' If the answer is no, I ignore it."
"You know, it's just impossible to write a public poem--the term is simply an oxymoron. People would stop me and ask, 'How's the poem coming?' That didn't make it any easier. Then, too, I'm not blessed with a flow of words. I write out a sentence, and then I say it out loud to hear the melody, and then I realize it's all wrong. So I scratch out everything except one word that sounds right, and then I start again."
"Obviously, I don't approve of the brute and the bigot on any side. But years and years ago, in Arkansas of all places and as a black girl of all people, I saw these words by Terence: 'I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me.' I read that statement during a period when I was mute--so isolated I was just not on this th--and I used to think of my whole body as an ear that could go into a room and absorb all sound. The statement by Terence went straight to my head and my heart. I belie more...
"Obviously, I don't approve of the brute and the bigot on any side. But years and years ago, in Arkansas of all places and as a black girl of all people, I saw these words by Terence: 'I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me.' I read that statement during a period when I was mute--so isolated I was just not on this th--and I used to think of my whole body as an ear that could go into a room and absorb all sound. The statement by Terence went straight to my head and my heart. I believed then and I believe now that there is nothing a human being can say, do, commit or think that I'm not capable of committing myself. So there's no distance. I refuse it."less...
Before she began what was to become an extraordinary literary career, the writer and poet Maya Angelou--born Marguerite Angelou Johnson--was an actress and singer. Angelou grew up in Stamps, a segregated rural town in Arkansas. She began to write at the encouragement of friends, including James Baldwin, who had heard her tell stories of her unique childhood. Ms. Angelou read her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning", at President Clinton's inauguration in 1993. Angelou speaks French, Spanish, Italian more...
Before she began what was to become an extraordinary literary career, the writer and poet Maya Angelou--born Marguerite Angelou Johnson--was an actress and singer. Angelou grew up in Stamps, a segregated rural town in Arkansas. She began to write at the encouragement of friends, including James Baldwin, who had heard her tell stories of her unique childhood. Ms. Angelou read her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning", at President Clinton's inauguration in 1993. Angelou speaks French, Spanish, Italian and West African Fanti.less...
This book i s very inspirational to women. I recommend this book.