Gwendolyn Brooks Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Leadership, Desire, Fit

  120 Copy quote

• We don't ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Flower, Special, Able

  99 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Love, Inspirational, Wedding

  Gwendolyn Brooks (2005). “The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.129, Library of America

  93 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Book, Reading, Important

  95 Copy quote

• 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.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Running, Song, Home

  Gwendolyn Brooks, “Speech To The Young: Speech To The Progress-Toward”

  65 Copy quote

• Even if you are not ready for day
  it cannot always be night.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Night, Slappers, Ready

  Gwendolyn Brooks, “Speech To The Young: Speech To The Progress-Toward”

  73 Copy quote

• Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Truth, Teaching, Bars

  Gwendolyn Brooks (1988). “Gottschalk and the grande tarantelle”, Third World Pr

  81 Copy quote

• 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.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Black, Groups, Minorities

  90 Copy quote

• I believe we should all know each other, we human carriers of so many pleasurable differences. To not know is to doubt, to shrink from, sidestep or destroy.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Believe, Differences, Doubt

  95 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Courage, Diversity, Bravery

  Gwendolyn Brooks (2005). “The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.57, Library of America

  41 Copy quote

• Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come again in this identical guise.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Life, Gold, Littles

  "Annie Allen". Book by Gwendolyn Brooks, 1949.

  75 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Being Yourself, Important, Poet

  23 Copy quote

• Books are meat and medicine and flame and flight and flower steel, stitch, cloud and clout, and drumbeats on the air.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Flower, Book, Reading

  86 Copy quote

• 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.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Army, Men, Two

  55 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Cat, People, Reason

  "In the Mecca: poems".

  39 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Art, Hurt, Home

  Gwendolyn Brooks (2005). “The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.109, Library of America

  41 Copy quote

• I am interested in telling my particular truth as I have seen it.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Particular

  Obituary by Margaret Busby, www.theguardian.com. December 07, 2000.

  25 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Progress, World, Good Health

  31 Copy quote

• This is the urgency: Live! and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Life, Blooming, Noise

  Gwendolyn Brooks (2005). “The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.115, Library of America

  56 Copy quote

• What, what am I to do with all of this life?

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  This Life

  Gwendolyn Brooks (1971). “The world of Gwendolyn Brooks”, Harpercollins

  15 Copy quote

• A poem doesn't do everything for you.
  You are supposed to go on with your thinking.
  You are supposed to enrich
  the other person's poem with your extensions,
  your uniquely personal understandings,
  thus making the poem serve you.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Thinking, Understanding, Goes On

  Gwendolyn Brooks (2003). “In Montgomery, and Other Poems”

  53 Copy quote

• Be careful what you swallow. Chew!

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  African American, Words Of Wisdom, Be Careful

  Talk with graduates at Buena Vista University Graduation, 1995.

  19 Copy quote

• I think there are things for all of us to do as long as we're here and we're healthy.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Happiness, Inspiring, Success

  89 Copy quote

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

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Song, Battle, Slappers

  Gwendolyn Brooks, “Speech To The Young: Speech To The Progress-Toward”

  21 Copy quote

• She was learning to love moments. To love moments for themselves.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Moments, Learning To Love

  Gwendolyn Brooks (1971). “The world of Gwendolyn Brooks”, Harpercollins

  44 Copy quote

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