Gwendolyn Brooks Quotes

I've always thought of myself as a reporter. When people ask why I don't stop writing, I say, `Look at what's happening in this world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about.’ With all that's going on, how could I stop?

One reason cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.

at a certain moment in social proceedings, I am on FIRE to leave: I have a leaving-FIT.

Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, "Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night." You will be right. For that is the hard home-run. Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along.

Live not for Battles Won. Live not for The-End-of-the-Song. Live in the along.

Do not desire to fit in. Desire to oblige yourselves to lead.

Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get.

I like the concentration, the crush; I like working with language, as others like working with clay, or notes.

I've always thought of myself as a reporter.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

Reading is important - read between the lines. Don't swallow everything.

I don't like the idea of the black race being diluted out of existence. I like the idea of all of us being here.

Nothing could stop Mississippi.

Words can do wonderful things. They pound, purr. They can urge, they can wheedle, whip, whine. They can sing, sass, singe. They can churn, check, channelize. They can be a "Hup two three four." They can forge a fiery army of a hundred languid men.

When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.

Very early in life I became fascinated with the wonders language can achieve. And I began playing with words.

Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home.

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

The music is in minors.

Poetry is life distilled.

When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.

I shall create! If not a note, a hole./If not an overture, a desecration.

Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world.

Be yourself. Don't imitate other poets. You are as important as they are.

As you get older, you find that often the wheat, disentangling itself from the chaff, comes out to meet you.

It is brave to be involved. To be not fearful to be unresolved.

Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.

Exhaust the little moment / Soon it dies.

People like definite decisions, / Tidy answers, all the little ravelings / Snipped off, the lint removed, they / Hop happily among their roughs / Calling what they can't clutch insanity / Or saintliness.