I'm committed to the idea that one of the few things human beings have to offer is the richness of unconscious and conscious emotional responses to being alive. ... The kind of esteem that's given to brightness/smartness obliterates average people… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
My characters don't talk necessarily in a normal American way of talking. They talk a little different. — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
It still amazes and fascinates me that women of color have kept my work alive for these many generations. — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
I write for young girls of color, for girls who don't even exist yet, so that there is something there for them when they… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
My family moved around a lot, so I don't have any friends that I had all my life, but I did have annual trips… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
i usedta live in the world really be in the world free & sweet talkin good mornin & thank-you & nice day uh huh… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
The slaves who were ourselves had known terror intimately, confused sunrise with pain, & accepted indifference as kindness. — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
White people use their literature to maintain culture. That's why you find references to Milton and Spencer and Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky in contemporary novels. — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
Art gives us the opportunity to have clarity as well as hope that we might be able to survive a situation, or hope that… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
I think art is a healing force, and if we give in to the joy that can be found in art, then we are… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
Being alive and being a woman is all I got, but being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet. — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
When I die, I will no be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
I had - there were three strokes, and I lost my ability to read and write and speak, and it really put me by… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
