Maya Angelou Quotes

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.

The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That's how I feel now, no matter what you're doing.

I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain.

Everything is painful, so why not be honest about the pain?

When the book comes out it may hurt you - but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.

In terms of my life, I guess I want to share whatever I've learned really, which is basically one thing: know yourself, look for yourself, know what to look for, cherish it, be honest, be authentic, even if it hurts your feelings. That's not bad.

Someone once said to me, 'Some of us choose to live with a lifeboat just a little bit out of our reach.' I'd like to reach a point where I no longer bullshit myself. I think that's the natural human condition - to lie to yourself. Because the truth is painful.

I depend on my family and friends a lot. I have a group of people I'm always honest and current with. I try to get through pain and not go around it, it always ends sooner that way.

I was 45 when I wrote most of this book [Hungry Heart ], at what felt like a halfway point in my life, and I thought, If I can't be honest now, when will it happen? It was so hard to step away from the [protection of] fiction, but I'm ready to talk start telling their truth.

Sometimes, I have to really monitor myself, but the only monitoring job I really do on myself on stage is, Is this truthful? Is this truthful? Is this truthful? Ideally, I send it in a flow of truth.

Good therapy helps. Good friends help. Pretending that we are doing better than we are doesn't. Shame doesn't. Being heard does.

As if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.

Know yourself and go in swinging, if it hurts when you hit, it might be real, too.

"So you're always honest," I said. "Aren't you?" "No," I told him. "I'm not." "Well, that's good to know, I guess." "I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways." "How'd you mean it, then?" "I just...I don't always say what I feel." "Why not?" "Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. "Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."

A lot of us are too busy focusing on what we think people want to hear, as opposed to just saying what's in our hearts.

My life is routine. I wake up early in the morning. I brush my teeth. I sit on the floor of the cell I do not go to breakfast. I stare at a gray cement wall. I keep my legs crossed my back straight my eyes forward. I take deep breaths in and out, in and out, and I try not to move. I sit for as long as I can I sit until everything hurts I sit until everything stops hurting I sit until I lose myself in the gray wall I sit until my mind becomes as blank as the gray wall. I sit and I stare and I breathe. I sit and I stare. I breathe.

Regardless of how funny I want to be, I don't ever have a problem speaking from my heart or speaking honestly to people.

The hardest thing in the world to play is something close to myself.

You have to reflect honestly what's around you in your music. I think a lot of people are just obsessed with their own relationships, so that is an honest reflection of what they see. A lot of people don't go much deeper than that.

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The truth doesn't hurt. Whatever it is, it doesn't hurt. It's better to know the truth.

I guess it has to be healthy, you have to be honest with yourself and I think that's when ego is okay.

Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures.

That is what is wrong with cold people. Not that they have ice in their souls - we all have a bit of that - but that they insist every word and deed mirror that ice. They never learn the beauty or value of gesture. The emotional necessity. For them, it is all honesty before kindness, truth before art. Love is art, not truth. It's like painting scenery.

Well usually if I'm having a sh***y day, I don't post anything. I don't go out just to tell everyone I'm having a great day, even if I'm not.