Gwendolyn Brooks quotes - page 2

Live not for Battles Won. Live not for The-End-of-the-Song. Live in the along. (Gwendolyn Brooks)
Don't let anyone call you a minority if you're black or Hispanic or belong to some other ethnic group. You're not less than anybody else. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Be yourself. Don't imitate other poets. You are as important as they are. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
First fight. Then fiddle. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
I shall create! If not a note, a hole./If not an overture, a desecration. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Nothing could stop Mississippi. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
I've always thought of myself as a reporter. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
The first night, a rock, big as two fists. The second, a rock big as three. But nary a curse cursed Rudolph Reed. (Though oaken as man could be.) The third night, a silvery ring of glass. Patience arched to endure, But he looked, and lo! small Mabel's blood Was staining her gaze so pure. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. I have contracted. I have eased My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck. I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized Your luck And your lives from your unfinished reach, If I stole your births and your names, Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths, If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you All. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
consider the big fists breaking your little bones, or consider the vague bureaucrats stumbling, fumbling through Paper. (Gwendolyn Brooks)
It is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes I am aware there is winter to heed. There is no warm house That is fitted with my need. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Rudolph Reed was oaken. His wife was oaken too. And his two good girls and his good little man Oakened as they grew. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Small Mabel whimpered all night long, For calling herself the cause. Her oak-eyed mother did no thing But change the bloody gauze. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
I hold my honey and I store my bread In little jars and cabinets of my will. I label clearly, and each latch and lid I bid, Be firm till I return from hell. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Come: there shall be such islanding from grief, And small communion with the master shore. Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin, Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry In humming pallor or to leap and die. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
What shall I say, how is the truth to be said? You were born, you had body, you died. It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
The good man. He is still enhancer, renouncer. In the time of detachment, in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil, in the time of oral grave grave legalities of hate - all real walks our prime registered reproach and seal. Our successful moral. The good man. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
It is a real chill out, The genuine thing. I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer Because sun stays and birds continue to sing. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Is earnest enough, may earnest attract or lead to light; Is light enough, if hands in clumsy frenzy, flimsy whimsically, enlist; Is light enough when this bewilderment crying against the dark shuts down the shades? Dilute confusion. Find and explode our mist. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get, The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair, The singers and workers that never handled the air. You will never neglect or beat Them, or silence or buy with a sweet. You will never wind up the sucking-thumb Or scuttle off ghosts that come. (Gwendolyn Brooks)
Somebody muffed it?? Somebody wanted to joke. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
I shall not sing a May song. A May song should be gay. I'll wait until November And sing a song of gray. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Coherent Counsel! Good man. Require of us our terribly excluded blue. Constrain, repair a ripped, revolted land. Put hand in hand land over. Reprove the abler droughts and manias of the day and a felicity entreat. Love. Complete your pledges, reinforce your aides, renew stance, testament. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks
Nary a grin grinned Rudolph Reed, Nary a curse cursed he, But moved in his House. With his dark little wife, And his dark little children three. View quote
Gwendolyn Brooks