I think it must be lonely to be God. Nobody loves a master. No. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love. — Gwendolyn Brooks

She was learning to love moments. To love moments for themselves. — Gwendolyn Brooks

To be in love is To Touch with a lighter hand. in yourself you stretch, you are well. — Gwendolyn Brooks

I know that the Black emphasis must be not against white but FOR Black. — Gwendolyn Brooks

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

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

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

Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world. — Gwendolyn Brooks

When I start writing a poem, I don’t think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done. — Gwendolyn Brooks

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

Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world. — Gwendolyn Brooks

I swear to keep the dead upon my mind, / Disdain for all time to be overglad. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Nothing could stop Mississippi. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Do not be afraid of no, Who has so far, so very far to go. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Goodness begins simply with the fact of life itself. — Gwendolyn Brooks

We don’t ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves. — Gwendolyn Brooks

What, what am I to do with all of this life? — Gwendolyn Brooks

There are no magics or elves / Or timely godmothers to guide us. We are lost, must / Wizard a track through our own screaming weed. — Gwendolyn Brooks

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Life for my child is simple, and is good. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Art hurts. Art urges voyages–and it is easier to stay at home. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Be yourself. Don’t imitate other poets. You are as important as they are. — Gwendolyn Brooks

One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers. — Gwendolyn Brooks

The poetry is myself. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Life must be aromatic. There must be scent, somehow there must be some. — Gwendolyn Brooks