Gwendolyn Brooks Quotes

... sometimes you have to deal / Devilishly with drowning men in order to swim them to shore.

First fight. Then fiddle.

I swear to keep the dead upon my mind, / Disdain for all time to be overglad.

The music is in minors.

My last defense / Is the present tense.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction.

Do not be afraid of no, Who has so far, so very far to go.

Nothing could stop Mississippi.

I don't want people running around saying Gwen Brooks's work is intellectual. That makes people think instantly about obscurity. It shouldn't have to mean that, but it often seems to.

To be in love Is to touch things with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well.

Life must be aromatic. There must be scent, somehow there must be some.

beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.

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

There are no magics or elves / Or timely godmothers to guide us. We are lost, must / Wizard a track through our own screaming weed.

I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don't pay attention 'cause it probably has floated into somebody else's head.

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

No man can give me any word but Wait.

Life for my child is simple, and is good.

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

People are so in need, in need of help. People want so much that they do not know.

I've always thought of myself as a reporter.

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

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.And be it gash or gold it will not comeAgain in this identical disguise.

Books are meat and medicineand flame and flight and flowersteel, stitch, cloud and clout, and drumbeats on the air.

It is brave to be involved.

We real cool. WeLeft school. WeLurk late. WeStrike straight. WeSing sin. WeThin gin. WeJazz June. WeDie soon.

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