A Quote by Amanda Gorman

Most of my life I was particularly terrified of speaking up, because I had a speech impediment, which made it difficult to pronounce certain letters, sounds, and I felt like I was fine writing on the page, but once I got on stage, I was worried my words might jumble and stumble.
I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too.
One of the most rewarding moments of my career is when I'm speaking to a child who tells me they have the same speech impediment that I had to overcome and that they're going to keep writing or sharing their voice after hearing my story.
I had a speech class in elementary school. And you know how teachers, when a kid is struggling to pronounce a word, used to lead him and say, 'Johnny, sounds like... ? Johnny, sounds like... ?' I said out loud, 'Sounds like Johnny can't read.' Teacher told me to leave the room.
Writing the first draft of a new story is incredibly difficult for me. I will happily do revisions, because once I can see the words on the page, I can go about ripping them up and moving scenes around. A blank page, though? Terrifying. I'm always angsty when I'm working my way through a first draft.
I didn't realise I had a speech impediment until I came back to England. I spent the whole of my life working abroad, and no-one mentioned it. I came back to England and suddenly realised I had a speech impediment.
My whole life at a certain point was studio, hotel, stage, hotel, stage, studio, stage, hotel, studio, stage. I was expressing everything from my past, everything that I had experienced prior to that studio stage time, and it was like you have to go back to the well, in order to give someone something to drink. I felt like a cistern, dried up and like there was nothing more. And it was so beautiful.
The idea of writing, to me, was, from the beginning, was writing something which was a little different from the ordinary exchange of speech. It was something that had a certain formality, something in which the words were of interest in themselves.
When I did plays in high school and college, I never remember memorizing my lines, but once I had blocking, I had all my lines memorized. Once I had movement associated with words, it was fine. Before I had blocking, it was just text on a page. Once it became embodied, it was much easier.
...words are in a way our godly sharing in the work of creation, and the speaking and writing of words is at once the most human and the most holy business we engage in.
I got on stage and I went, "Oh wow. No stage fright." I couldn't do public speaking, and I couldn't play the piano in front of people, but I could act. I found that being on stage, I felt, "This is home." I felt an immediate right thing, and the exchange between the audience and the actors on stage was so fulfilling. I just went, "That is the conversation I want to have."
I just got a new dog, so I was worried that he'd hate the fireworks, and he did, but just because he's not a patriot, not because of the loud sounds. The loud sounds he's fine with - he just hates America.
My speech impediment wasn't a stutter but it was dropping several letters that I just could not say for several years, most specifically the 'r' sound.
Being right is not too difficult. Your choose your perception. You select your information. You leave out what does not suit you. You drag in some general-purpose value words. You throw in a sneer or two about the opposition, and you are a fine fellow who made a fine speech.
I often think of the space of a page as a stage, with words, letters, syllable characters moving across.
There was a while when I got really bad stage fright and I basically felt...I was incredibly angry. I felt like everything had been taken away from me and it was at that point that I realized how much doing stand up reminds me of my self love and curiosity about myself and love of other people because I don't go on stage to dominate.
He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her g's the same way he did : he searched through the letter for every one of them, and each felt like a friendly little wave glimpsed from behind a veil. The letter was an incredible treasure, proof that Lily Potter had lived, really lived, that her warm hand had once moved across this parchment, tracing ink into these letters, these words, words about him, Harry, her son.
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