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Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.

I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer.

Maya Angelou was the voice of three generations. Her poetry spanned our journey, chronicled our hearts and documented our struggles as we moved from the orations of Martin Luther King to the presidency of Barack Obama.

Thank you so much for supporting me from the day I stepped foot into the music industry. It really means something to me to have Maya Angelou speak on my behalf. It also means a lot to have Oprah on my speed dial!

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.

Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.

All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.

The two contemporary writers whom I consider as role models are Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis.