Gwendolyn Brooks Quotes
June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000
Read Gwendolyn Brooks biography
More Gwendolyn Brooks Quotes
It is brave to be involved To be not fearful to be unresolved.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "do not be afraid of no" from Annie Allen (1949)
Art hurts. Art urges voyages and it is easier to stay at home.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "The Chicago Picasso" (1968)
Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "Song for Winnie"
Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come Again in this identical guise.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "exhaust the little moment" from Annie Allen (1949)
The WEs in "We Real Cool" are tiny, wispy, weakly argumentative "Kilroy-is-here" announcements. The boys have no accented sense of themselves, yet they are aware of a semi-defined personal importance. Say the "We" softly.
Gwendolyn Brooks— Report from Part One (1972)
When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks", Contemporary Literature 11:1 (Winter 1970)
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— Report From Part One (1972)
As you get older, you find that often the wheat, disentangling itself from the chaff, comes out to meet you.
Gwendolyn Brooks— Report From Part One (1972)
Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.
Gwendolyn Brooks— Black Poetry Writing (1975)
Be careful what you swallow. Chew!
Gwendolyn Brooks— Advice to graduates, Buena Vista University Graduation (1995)
I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.
Gwendolyn Brooks— My Soul Looks Back, 'Less I Forget (1995) by Dorothy Winbush Riley
I am interested in telling my particular truth as I have seen it.
Gwendolyn Brooks— Quoted in her obituary in The Guardian (7 December 2000)
To be in love Is to touch with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "To Be In Love"
He is not there but You know you are tasting together The winter, or a light spring weather. His hand to take your hand is overmuch. Too much too bear.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "To Be In Love"
I shall not sing a May song. A May song should be gay. I'll wait until November And sing a song of gray.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "The Crazy Woman"
And all the little people Will stare at me and say, "That is the Crazy Woman Who would not sing in May."
Gwendolyn Brooks— "The Crazy Woman"
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.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell"
Already you're on Page 8.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "Thinking of Elizabeth Steinberg"
consider the big fists breaking your little bones, or consider the vague bureaucrats stumbling, fumbling through Paper.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "Thinking of Elizabeth Steinberg"
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.
Gwendolyn Brooks— "garbageman: the man with the orderly mind"
