“Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.”

—  Maya Angelou

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life." by Maya Angelou?
Maya Angelou photo
Maya Angelou 247
American author and poet 1928–2014

Related quotes

Greg Giraldo photo

“Hasslehoff, your liver is so shriveled, black, and dead. If you put your ear to your side you can hear it going "What you talking bout Willis."”

Greg Giraldo (1965–2010) American comedian

David Hasslehoff Comedy Central Roast (2010)

Gustave Flaubert photo

“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Soyez réglé dans votre vie et ordinaire comme un bourgeois, afin d'être violent et original dans vos œuvres. To Gertrude Tennant (December 25, 1876)
Correspondence
Variant: Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

Max Frisch photo

“You can put anything into words, except your own life”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist
Maya Angelou photo

“Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

William James photo

“If you can change your mind, you can change your life.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

“There are a couple of skills you take away from Housewives. You learn to be quick on your feet, stand your ground. I’ve always been kind of unapologetic, but you grow into that or into your own skin. You have a choice: you can either grow into your skin or you can back out. It will test your strength and patience - it will definitely run the gamut so you can figure out a little bit more of what you’re made of.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to Billboard https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8301673/erika-jayne-pretty-mess-interview (2018)

Will Rogers photo

“We are here just for a spell and then pass on. So get a few laughs and do the best you can. Live your life so that whenever you lose it, you are ahead.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Inscribed on the Will Rogers Memorial Building in Claremore, Oklahoma.
Variants: We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can.
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 285
We are all here for a short spell; so get all the good laughs you can.
As quoted in Civilization's Quotations : Life's Ideal (2002) by Richard Alan Krieger, p. 69
As quoted in ...

Orson Scott Card photo

“Perhaps you don’t desire poetry as much as you would like to have my torchy knowledge of your possible futures, but I dare say poetry will do you far more good. For knowing the future only makes you timid and complacent by turns, while poetry can shape you into the kind of souls who can face any future with boldness and wisdom and nobility, so that you need not know the future at all, so that any future will be an opportunity for greatness, if you have greatness in you.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Prentice Alvin (1989), Chapter 15.

Spencer W. Kimball photo

“Life gives to all the choice. You can satisfy yourself with mediocrity if you wish. You can be common, ordinary, dull, colorless, or yyou can channel your life so that it will be clean, vibrant, useful, progressive, colorful, and rich.”

Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Related topics