Gwendolyn Brooks Quotes

80 Sourced Quotes

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

Gwendolyn Brooks
That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other's
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond.

Gwendolyn Brooks
Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again in this identical disguise.

Gwendolyn Brooks
Art hurts. Art urges voyages—
and it is easier to stay at home.

Gwendolyn Brooks
Recipient and benefactor.
It's so good of you.
You're being so good.

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

Gwendolyn Brooks
And I ride ride I ride on to the end —...
To fail, to flourish, to wither or to win.
We lurch, distribute, we extend, begin.

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

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

Gwendolyn Brooks
I've stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

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

Gwendolyn Brooks
And remembering...
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

Gwendolyn Brooks
A garbageman is dignified
as any diplomat.
Big Bessie's feet hurt like nobody's business,
but she stands—bigly—under the unruly scrutiny, stands in the wild weed.
In the wild weed
she is a citizen.

Gwendolyn Brooks
Time upholds or overturns
The many, tight, and small concerns.

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

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

Gwendolyn Brooks
Was, perhaps, the whole life of man a dedication to this search for something to lean upon, and was, to a great degree, his "happiness" or "unhappiness" written up for him by the demands or limitations of what he chose for that work? For work it was. Leaning was work.

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.

Gwendolyn Brooks
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.

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

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

Gwendolyn Brooks
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
Rudolph Reed was oaken.
His wife was oaken too.
And his two good girls and his good little man
Oakened as they grew.

Gwendolyn Brooks
Maud went to college,
Sadie stayed at home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine-tooth comb.

Gwendolyn Brooks
Consider the big fists breaking your little bones,
or consider the vague bureaucrats
stumbling, fumbling through Paper.

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.

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

Gwendolyn Brooks
He's the comfort
and wine and piccalilli for my soul.

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

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.

Gwendolyn Brooks