"The autobiographer looks at life through the..." - Quote by Maya Angelou
The autobiographer looks at life through the lens of his or her own life and really uses herself or himself as the jumping-off place to examine the social mores and the economic and political climates. In a way, the autobiography becomes history as well as the story of one person, for it becomes the story of a family or the story of the state or nation.
More by Maya Angelou
More on Autobiography
“Every autobiography ... becomes an absorbing work of fiction, with something of the charm of a cryptogram.”
“Autobiography is awfully seductive; it's wonderful. Once I got into it, I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass - the slave narrative - speaking in the first-person singular, talking about the first-person plural, always saying 'I,' meaning 'we.'”
“All criticism is a form of autobiography”
More on Writing
“Write what you love and love what you write.”
“Who does not know history's first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice?”
“A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.”