Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes

In fact, when I finally realized I was really going to write, when I was about thirty-four, I was working on my Ph.D. in Mathematics. I was just about to earn my Master's along the way, but I knew something was wrong because I found myself crying all the time.

The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.

Sometimes you have to be less ashamed about writing a bad poem than you would be about being silent.

There's no bad writing; you did something. I was operating inside language, and I did something. I'm not ashamed of it.

I always make it a rule never to look back. Otherwise, I'd ask myself how I could write such piffle and live with myself, day after day.

I'm an indulgent writer - I'm not sure, however, that's something I'm interested in changing. Writing should be indulgent: you should take big risks on the page, you should make big mistakes, you should be excessive at times. I let myself do as a writer what I probably would be less likely to allow as an editor.

To live is to war with trolls in heart and woul. To write is to sit in judgement on oneself.

All my writing has been an effort to sort out the paradoxes of my life.

The story you are afraid to write is usually the one you are meant to tell.

Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you that there is magic in it, and if you show yourself naked for me, I'll be naked for you. It will be our covenant.

A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

And indeed there will be time to wonder, 'Do I dare?', and 'Do I dare?

Dramatic reading and writing for kids can open a window to individuality and to expression that nothing else does, because all of a sudden the pressure is off and they just bring themselves to the table.

I'm a grown-up and I'm a creative person so I should try to give something to that and see what I can make with that. And not sit around listening to people be like, 'You really should be on an HBO show. You'd be great on an Amazon series.' You're like, 'Thank you, okay. I don't have any offers.'

On "Tonight" I think I was torn dreadfully between writing what I wanted to write, but keeping it in a style that would follow up what I had just done. That's where I feel I was untrue to myself as an artist . . . that album and, to a lesser extent, "Never Let Me Down."

I try to write every day. Sometimes the things come out well, and sometimes they don't. When they come out well you think, Wow, I must be really great; and when they come out poorly, you think you must be terrible, but the truth is that's how any process works.

My sophomore English teacher encouraged me to write for the school paper, and that's what got me started. Suddenly it struck me that being a writer could be a romantic and adventurous position. Previously, I had thought I would be a tennis pro, giving lessons at a local club. I thought that would be a good life, and it might have been.

When I was growing up, I had no idea that I could possibly become a writer. I wrote endlessly in journals - a practice I maintained for a long time, well into the writing life I had no idea I could ever have.

Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.

Don't worry about what you're writing or whether it's good or even whether it makes sense.

I wonder how I seem to them. They must see someone I don't see. Someone capable and strong. Someone I can't be; someone I can be.

It takes more talent to write music, but it takes more courage to write lyrics.

Ultimately, I think writing is a mixture of craft, inspiration, and being incredibly, courageously explorative with yourself - and being brutally honest, too.

I am pretty sick with myself! It seemed a pretty good idea at the time. Around the time I turned 30, I started to feel very creative, more creative than I had been before which is good and I like that.