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Poetry is life distilled.

Gwendolyn Brooks

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Gwendolyn Brooks
Age: 83 †
Born: 1917
Born: June 7
Died: 2000
Died: December 3
Novelist
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Topeka
Kansas
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks
Distilled
Poetry
Life

More quotes by Gwendolyn Brooks

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With melted opals for my milk, Pearl-leaf for my cracker.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Life must be aromatic. There must be scent, somehow there must be some.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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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!
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Do not be afraid of no, Who has so far, so very far to go.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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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 world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about.’ With all that's going on, how could I stop?
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Very early in life I became fascinated with the wonders language can achieve. And I began playing with words.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Writing is a delicious agony.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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We are each other's magnitude and bond.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Be careful what you swallow. Chew!
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Be yourself. Don't imitate other poets. You are as important as they are.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Exhaust the little moment / Soon it dies.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Don't let anyone call you a minority if you're black or Hispanic or belong to some other ethnic group. You're not less than anybody else.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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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 won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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As you get older, you find that often the wheat, disentangling itself from the chaff, comes out to meet you.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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My last defense / Is the present tense.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Goodness begins simply with the fact of life itself.
Gwendolyn Brooks