A Quote by Lena Waithe

I sort of knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer. Even in high school, I was a big movie buff, very much into TV shows, and would critique them. — © Lena Waithe
I sort of knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer. Even in high school, I was a big movie buff, very much into TV shows, and would critique them.
I knew that I was a good writer in high school and won awards, and I was the editor of my school newspaper. So I knew that I was a good writer and I wanted to somehow capitalize and sort of utilize a talent that I thought I had.
I knew very early on I wanted to be a television writer. My teachers told me I was a strong writer and had a voice. I really leaned in to that.
It helps to know from a very early age what you want to do. From the time I was five years old, I wanted to be a writer, even though I couldn't even read. It was mainly because I thought of my father as a writer.
When I was in high school in the early 1970s, we knew we were running out of oil; we knew that easy sources were being capped; we knew that diversifying would be much better; we knew that there were terrible dictators and horrible governments that we were enriching who hated us. We knew all that and we did really nothing.
I began writing early - very, very early... I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals; I was involved in school plays; I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, 'Now I'm a writer.' I've always been a writer.
I left high school very early. I was 17. So I guess it wasn't that early, but I did not get a high school education.
I was up for parts in 'Charlie's Angels' and 'Three's Company,' but other people got them. At the time I was very disappointed because I knew the shows would be tremendous hits. But if I had done either I would not have done the following: 'Chorus Line,' 'Dancin',' 'Chicago,' 'Movie Movie,' 'All That Jazz' and 'Annie.'
When I wrote my stories in elementary school, I signed them all 'Karen E. Bender' with the squiggly 'E.' I wanted, from an early age, to be a writer, and that name - that E - was a way of pretending I knew how to do it.
The process of decolonisation in Nigeria was a very untidy one. The British, when they were leaving finally and knew exactly who they wanted to take over, they wanted pliant government, figures, structures, they wanted to continue indirectly in effect their control over much of their colonial possessions and this was one of the very early causes of conflict.
As I very much liked to draw and paint as a child, I entered a special art program in high school, which was very much like being in an art school imbedded in a regular high school curriculum.
I knew that I could sing when I was young. I would listen to a lot of jazz; I'm a big jazz fan. When I first got to high school and studied musical theater, I could sing. But I added certain things to my voice, and I realized after graduating high school that this is the kind of voice I had. It's not very nimble, but it's heavy.
I was too self-conscious in high school. I wanted to fit in or to disappear. I was a very uncomfortable person in high school, very uncomfortable with my body and I just didn't feel like I fit in. I wanted to be invisible.
My father never wanted me to be a writer. He didn't - he came to terms with it maybe two years before he died. He wanted me to be a weather girl because when I was growing up, there were very few Latinas on television, and in the early '70s when you first started seeing Latinas on TV, they would be the weather girls.
I knew when I went to a very hippie high school that focused on music that I wanted to do something in the industry.
I just wanted to fit in, so probably early on I knew, but it was... social life was such a distant part of my existence when I was in school that I didn't even think about it too much.
I knew very early what I wanted to do, and I considered myself lucky to know that's what I wanted, even in a place like Saint Lucia where there was no publishing house and no theatre.
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