Pearl Cleage Quotes
-
When you're writing first person, all I can see and tell as the author is what that main character can see.
-
I was raised in a very activist household so that I grew up surrounded by people who were activists.
-
Any time your life is at stake and you can't find even one woman to come forward and say, 'This is a good man,' your problem isn't what kind of woman THEY are. Your problem is what kind of men YOU are.
-
I think that theater is a unique way to communicate with people as they gather together with other people they may not even know. It creates a sense of shared community for the time of the performance that hopefully carries over into other aspects of the audience's life because they have shared this experience together.
-
Buying flowers is not just a way to bring home beauty. It's an expression of confidence that better days are coming. It's a defiant finger in the face of those naysayers who would have you believe your fortunes will never improve.
-
If I had to name one book that has had the most lasting influence on my work, I would pick 'The Big Sea' by Langston Hughes.
-
I really love writing comedy. Writing romantic comedy is even nicer because you get to write about how insane we all act when we're falling in love.
-
I think all negotiations should take place at a round table and everybody should have to rotate counterclockwise once an hour so that even the perception of head of the table, or foot, are ritually obliterated.
-
I've always loved the '40s romantic comedies and the idea of those mistaken identities and lovers' misunderstandings.
-
That's why I love being a writer. My imagination can take me places I may never see except in my mind's eye.
-
When you sit down to write, you have to be prepared to strip all of those voices away, all of the censors away, and talk about what you think the truth is, which I think is really the task of the writer - to get to the truth.
-
Putting words on paper regularly is part of the necessary discipline of writing. A journal is a great way to do that.
-
We danced too wild, and we sang too long, and we hugged too hard, and we kissed too sweet, and howled just as loud as we wanted to howl, because by now we were all old enough to know that what looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.
-
When you're young, there's a whole lot of stuff you say you'll never do. Once you get a little older, the list tends to get shorter.
-
But it is the fear, not the writing that defeats me. Everything is not a masterpiece.
-
I worked in Maynard Jackson's first campaign, and I remember the excitement we felt when he won.
-
You can't save a person who doesn't want to be saved. It was like Mr. Eddie always told the new gardeners: Everybody's got to kill their own snakes.
-
I think one of the things that writers and creative artists generally have to deal with is the censors that we have in our heads, the voices that we have that say you better not tell that and don't tell that, and people will think you're not a good girl, and your grandmother's going to be mad at you and all of those things.
-
Most of us, I think, are conscious of history swirling around outside the door, but when we're in the house, we're usually not dealing with history. We're not thinking about history.
-
I'm not one of those playwrights who says, 'Show up, hit your marks, and don't talk to me!' I always want to hear from the other artists involved, whether it's the director, the lighting tech, or the actors.
-
Denzel Washington is a big Hollywood movie star now. But he started out as an actor in the Negro Ensemble company.
-
Many times, what people call 'writer's block' is the confusion that happens when a writer has a great idea, but their writing skill is not up to the task of putting that idea down on paper. I think that learning the craft of writing is critical.
-
Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.
-
I think the black community is no different from any other community. We need to take responsibility for how we live together. We need to be personally responsible for keeping our streets clean, our schools safe, and our houses peaceful.