Gwendolyn Brooks Quotations

Look at what's happening in this world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about. With all that's going on, how could I stop?

When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.

No man can give me any word but Wait ...

The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the '60s: Independent fire!

I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker. It has always been hard for me to say exactly what I mean in speech But if I have written a clumsiness, I may erase it.

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

beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.

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

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.

My last defense / Is the present tense.