Sonia Sanchez Quotes

• I cannot tell the truth about anything unless I confess being a student, growing and learning something new every day. The more I learn, the clearer my view of the world becomes.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Learning Something New, Views, World

  Sonia Sanchez (2010). “I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t and Other Plays”, p.17, Duke University Press

  193 Copy quote

• You can't have relationships with other people until you give birth to yourself.

  Sonia Sanchez

  People, Giving, Relationships With Others

  189 Copy quote

• All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, 'Something's wrong, let's change it for the better.'

  Sonia Sanchez

  Poetry, Political, Poet

  Sonia Sanchez, Joyce Ann Joyce (2007). “Conversations with Sonia Sanchez”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

  165 Copy quote

• I shall become, I shall become a collector of me. And put meat on my soul.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Soul, Meat, Collectors

  142 Copy quote

• The most fundamental truth to be told in any art form, as far as Blacks are concerned, is that America is killing us.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Art, America, United States

  Sonia Sanchez (2010). “I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t and Other Plays”, p.16, Duke University Press

  167 Copy quote

• Zora Neale Hurston said fear is the greatest emotion and I said, 'No my dear sister.' Fear will make us move to save our own skins. Love also makes us save ourselves, but it will make us move to save others as well.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Moving, Skins, Dear Sister

  166 Copy quote

• No. Don't never go looking for love girl. Just wait. It'll come. Like the rain fallin' from the heaven, it'll come. Just don't never give up on love.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Girl, Giving Up, Rain

  Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems”, p.34, Beacon Press

  158 Copy quote

• ... in order to be a true revolutionary, you must understand love. Love, sacrifice, and death.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Love, Death, Sacrifice

  132 Copy quote

• The black artist is dangerous. Black art controls the 'Negro's' reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Art, Reality, Black

  "Black art is dangerous, because it marries the personal and political" by Hannah Giorgis, www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2015.

  137 Copy quote

• I write to tell the truth about the black condition as I see it. Therefore, I write to offer a black woman's view of the world.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Writing, Views, Black

  Source: lunchticket.org

  48 Copy quote

• And I cried… for all of the women who stretched their bodies for civilizations, only to find ruins.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Civilization, Body, Ruins

  137 Copy quote

• ...I write to keep in contact with our ancestors and to spread truth to people.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Truth, Writing, People

  104 Copy quote

• I still hear you humming, Mama. The colour of your song calls me home. The colour of your words saying, Let her be. She got a right to be different. She gonna stumble on herself one of these days. Just let the child be. And I be, Mama.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Daughter, Mother, Song

  Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems”, p.58, Beacon Press

  115 Copy quote

• The words loved me and I loved them in return.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Book, Return

  Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems”, p.57, Beacon Press

  67 Copy quote

• So much of growing up is an unbearable waiting. A constant longing for another time. Another season.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Growing Up, Waiting, Unbearable

  Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems”, p.69, Beacon Press

  96 Copy quote

• The joy of poetry is that it will wait for you. Novels don't wait for you. Characters change. But poetry will wait. I think it's the greatest art.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Art, Character, Thinking

  62 Copy quote

• Art... reacts to or reflects the culture it springs from.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Art, Spring, Culture

  Sonia Sanchez (2010). “I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t and Other Plays”, p.15, Duke University Press

  49 Copy quote

• Poetry is subconscious conversation, it is as much the work of those who understand it and those who make it.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Conversation, Subconscious, Poetry Is

  Sonia Sanchez (2010). “I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t and Other Plays”, p.15, Duke University Press

  68 Copy quote

• What I'm trying to do is to tell young people that I teach them how to breathe before I teach the haiku. That one breath, that one breath, because the haiku keeps you alive. It keeps you going. If you learn how to breath the haiku, you learn how to breathe. If you learn how to breathe, you're much healthier.

  Sonia Sanchez

  People, Trying, Alive

  Source: www.pbs.org

  56 Copy quote

• Come windless invader I am a carnival of Stars, a poem of blood.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Stars, Blood, Invaders

  Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Like the Singing Coming off the Drums: Love Poems”, p.25, Beacon Press

  53 Copy quote

• what i need is traveling minds talktouch kisses spittouch you swimming upstream.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Kissing, Swimming, Mind

  Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Like the Singing Coming off the Drums: Love Poems”, p.31, Beacon Press

  62 Copy quote

• I probably have not killed anyone in America because I write, I've maintained good controls over myself by writing.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Writing, America

  31 Copy quote

• it is midnight
  no magical bewitching
  hour for me

  Sonia Sanchez

  Night, Magic, Midnight

  Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems”, p.8, Beacon Press

  37 Copy quote

• the first day i shot dope
  was on a sunday.
  i had just come
  home from church
  got mad at my mother
  cuz she got mad at me. u dig?

  Sonia Sanchez

  Mother, Anger, Home

  30 Copy quote

• What is the beauty of the haiku is that it is not simplistic. The beauty of the haiku I just said is very complex. It reaches all the complexities of our life on this Earth. Peace - that's a very complex idea, peace, so we can't get it as human beings.

  Sonia Sanchez

  Ideas, Earth, Said

  Source: www.pbs.org

  25 Copy quote

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