Maya Angelou Quotes

Write what he means, not what he says.

Tone is everything.

Something's that written out is okay, but it's not always a clear indication of what a person means.

Tone has the living soul.

There's what people say, and there's what people mean, and I like to explore the difference between the two.

Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think.

Every time you read a poem aloud to yourself in the presence of others, you are reading it into yourself and them. Voice helps to carry words farther and deeper than the eye.

The words that are coming out of my mouth and how I mean them, it's so much different.

Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.

People have to find ways of explaining the work.

Now, what we are not talking about, what you're really coming to, is what compromises one makes so that the listener understands somewhat of what you're doing, what you're trying to express.

A story is told as much by silence as by speech.

Sound comes out of a life experience.

Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

I love language because when it succeeds, for me, it doesn't just tell me something. It enacts something. It creates something. And it goes both ways. Sometimes it's violent. Sometimes it hurts you. And sometimes it saves you.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

Communication is important.

The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they have been in.

Language is a tool adequate to provide any degree of precision relevant to a particular situation.

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

How or by what magic is it, that we convey our thoughts to one another with such case and accuracy?

I have no message.

There is a profound difference between information and meaning.