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Do not desire to fit in. Desire to oblige yourselves to lead.

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
Desire
Oblige
Fit
Lead
Leadership

More quotes by Gwendolyn Brooks

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My last defense / Is the present tense.
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We are each other's magnitude and bond.
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When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.
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When you love a man, he becomes more than a body. His physical limbs expand, and his outline recedes, vanishes. He is rich and sweet and right. He is part of the world, the atmosphere, the blue sky and the blue water.
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Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.
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The poetry is myself.
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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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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.
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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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, into the street, into the halls of a housing project.
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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Be careful what you swallow. Chew!
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Writing is a delicious agony.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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I think it must be lonely to be God. Nobody loves a master. No.
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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I like the concentration, the crush I like working with language, as others like working with clay, or notes.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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It is brave to be involved
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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Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come again in this identical guise.
Gwendolyn Brooks
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And if sun comes / How shall we greet him? / Shall we not dread him, / Shall we not fear him / After so lengthy a / Session with shade?
Gwendolyn Brooks