May 28, 2014 / Inspiration

“When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am.”

We’ve lost Maya Angelou the person, but not the beauty and wisdom she pinned down with words. If you need inspiration today, let her descriptions of the writing life lift you up.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin — find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that it was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

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

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

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 what 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.

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

Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool — and I’m not any of those — to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That’s what Norman Mailer did. That’s what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that’s what I do — that’s what I mean to do.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind. I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it.

 If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.

The best candy shop a child can be left alone in is the library.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone — because we have the impulse to explain who we are. Not just how tall we are, or thin… but who we are internally… perhaps even spiritually. There’s something, which impels us to show our inner-souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.

Learn more about Dr. Angelou’s remarkable life in the New York Times, or see how other bloggers are remembering her in the Maya Angelou topic in the Reader — we particularly love these pieces from Black Millennial Musings and All at once….

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  4. “So precious were your eyes to me, to see the light the space and time, to feel the things I’ve never seen, to live as no one can begin to dream. You’re life was love as mine” Love Linda Schrier

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  5. I made a mistake in my post. Here is the correction. ” So precious were your eyes to me, to see the light the space and time, to have lived as no one can begin to dream. Your life was love as mine.” Love Linda Schrier

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  6. RIP Dr Angelou who had created and cultivated the art of writing and who had transformed words into its deepest meaning. Your quotes are beautifully written. May your soul rest in peace.

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  7. I’m going to admit right now that I have never read any Maya Angelou. But when she showed up on some PBS thing on TV, I always liked her. I like her even more now after reading this blog – it is good fun to see her Being expressed in words, as words that she chose and put on the record. We can’t say “put down on paper” anymore, now can we… can’t assume paper and pen were involved. But the words come, and they are thrilling. She “was” a thrilling writer – the words she chose will tell you so. “That reader who will pay the dues.” Heck, that writer who will pay the dues – and reap the gold. I wonder if Maya knew/knows that when supernovas explode, they spew out precious gold and other marvels. Maya Angelou was a supernova, wasn’t she. Public library, here I come.

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  9. The agony of preserving an untold story inside you is sad! Writing gives an expression to shout loud on paper and I think nothing better than this can be done. Madam, I second your thoughts, they express what a woman feels deep inside her heart 🙂
    Loved it!

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  11. Love all of this. Thank you for sharing these. To write, to share, to empower… Maya Angelou. You have left us with great wisdom and we are grateful for it.

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