Finding One's Voice Quotes

We find our voice, we lose our voice, we retrieve it, honor it, and hopefully, learn how to share it with others and stand in the center of our power. Translation is a theme. Fear and courage are a theme.

When I was very young, I didn't talk a lot. If an adult was speaking, I was listening. I think it was the moment I turned 18 when I was like, 'I'm an adult now and have opinions and things to say, so now it's time for people to listen to me.'

I think perhaps I've learned to be myself. I have a theory that all artists who would be important - painters and writers - must learn to be themselves. It takes a very long time.

I don't know if I have a voice of my own. I don't see me being an important person with something to say. I haven't. I've got nothing to say. My opinion is of no consequence or value.

I've spent most of my life trying to wear a persona that didn't quite fit and when I started writing books, it was like finally becoming the right person.

Over time, I have come to see the work of literature less as narrating the world than "seeing the world with words." From the moment he begins to use words like colors in a painting, a writer can begin to see how wondrous and surprising the world is, and he breaks the bones of language to find his own voice. For this he needs paper, a pen, and the optimism of a child looking at the world for the first time.

What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.

I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose-to find out what I think, to know where I stand.

All of us have at least one great voice deep inside.

In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. Each of you is an original. Each of you has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be heard.

I feel like I've mastered Dave East. For a long time I was trying to figure out who I was and what sound I wanted to come with.

I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eye.

You have to let the world speak to you and then you speak, you know, so I'm in that moment now where I'm finding the world's voice.

I've heard writers talk about "discovering a voice," but for me that wasn't a problem. There were so many voices that I didn't know where to start.

As you write plays, you discover what you believe. And until you know what you believe, you can't write a play.

It was only until I started to be myself that the music started to flow and people started to listen. So, thank you guys...

What I've learned in the past 12 years of recording (I made my first CD at 12) is how important it is to find one's authentic voice.

It was during this [as a kid] time that I came out of my shell vocally and performance wise, I learned how to really and truly sing in a different way.... my way. It was an amazing experience because I also realized my lifelong dream - to sing my own songs...I have something to say and it was a great release for me to share that part of myself with others.

Vision is about more than just getting things done, accomplishing some task, achieving something; it is about discovering and expanding our view of others, affirming them, believing in them, and helping them discover and realize the potential within them-helping them find their own voice.

I wasn't intentionally trying to create my own path or be original, it was just I needed to say certain things and I needed to express myself, and that's how it came out.

I believe that you can experience very profound moments of change in life...I never would have become an actress if I hadn't dropped out of high school. As a teenager, I was so driven to pursue my dreams that I made a decision to quit school at 17 so I could find my voice as an actress and eventually the profession embraced me.

When I started, I was very unsure of who I was. There were a lot of things in the songs that I didn't realize I was saying. But more and more, it fell into place... I got more comfortable in my skin.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

You listen to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane before they found their voice, they sounded different. And when you listen to them after they found their voice on their instruments, they sound more confident and in control. Artists have that, too.

I always knew I had this voice, but it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I realized I had the power to do something with it.