“Nathaniel Hawthorne says, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” I try to pull the language into such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It must look easy, but it takes me forever to get it to look so easy.”

— Maya Angelou

Paris Review Interview (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Maya Angelou 247

American author and poet 1928–2014

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“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

Also attributed to Ernest Hemingway and others; the earliest definite occurrence of this yet found in research for Wikiquote is by Maya Angelou, who stated it in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) edited by Jeffrey M. Elliot:
I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing
The statement she referred to is most probably:
You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading
Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (written 1771, published 1819) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Disputed