Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, "Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night." You will be right. For that is the hard home-run. Live not for battles… — 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
What I'm fighting for now in my work... for an expression relevant to all manner of blacks, poems I could take into a tavern,… — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
And if sun comes / How shall we greet him? / Shall we not dread him, / Shall we not fear him / After… — Gwendolyn Brooks Copy Share Image
