Nawal El Saadawi Quotes

I'm me, and I'm here, and I'm writing.

I'm a storyteller, I'm not a literary writer, and I don't want to be a literary writer. People say to me, "Oh, when are you going to write something different?" What? I don't want to write anything different. I'm writing relationships between people, all different colors, all different sizes, all different sexual orientations, and that's what I want to do.

All that I am is me. So I'm not really a poet or a writer or an actor or an activist; I'm me, and these are things that I do.

As far as writing, it's grown because I've really grown comfortable with who I am.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.

I think soul will always find its way into what I'm doing. It just comes from my root.

The best thing an actor can bring to a role is himself - that's no secret.

I want young readers to know that to tell their own story is the most important thing they'll ever do.

My songs are about who I am.

I feel terribly vulnerable and 'not-myself' when I'm not writing.

Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the caliber of a bullet, teething beads.

Self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.

Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing.

Seeing that I am so busily occupied with myself just now, I want to try to paint my self-portrait in writing.

I have in my life concentrated more on self-expression than self-denial.

... an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist.

I know the struggle from the inside out and I would never be so bold as to call myself a writer. I think that is what other people call you. But I consider myself a member of a community in Salt Lake City, in Utah, in the American West, in this country. And writing is what I do. That is the tool out of which I can express my love.

What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

Being an actor, you are recognized for being somebody else, whereas these books are distilled from me.

Singing is about telling a story. When you are onstage, you get to be your own self... When acting, you're someone else.

I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it.

I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience.

I'm a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked.