I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it and experiencing the challenge.
When I start writing a poem, I don’t think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.
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.
Writing is a delicious agony.
Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.
I know that the Black emphasis must be not against white but FOR Black.
One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.
Each body has its art...
Be careful what you swallow. Chew!
Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get.
I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.
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.
First fight. Then fiddle.
We are each other’s magnitude and bond.
I don’t like the idea of the black race being diluted out of existence. I like the idea of all of us being here.
We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.
We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.
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.
I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don’t pay attention ’cause it probably has floated into somebody else’s head.
No man can give me any word but Wait...