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. — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
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. — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
Very early in life I became fascinated with the wonders language can achieve. And I began playing with words. — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I've always thought of myself as a reporter. When people ask why I don't stop writing, I say, `Look at what's happening in this… — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
She was afraid to suggest to him that to most people, nothing "happens." That most people merely live from day to day until they… — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates… — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
Reading is important - read between the lines. Don't swallow everything. — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
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,… — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction. — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
One reason cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers. — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
