Ntozake Shange

“I hadn't published a book of poetry in over a decade because I've been very ill. As I got better and started to write, I said, 'Wow, even as an old woman, I could have a selected book of poems.'”

“i am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt memore than i ever danced outta/ i am ready to die like a lily in thedesert/ & i cdnt let you in on it cuz i didnt know/ hereis what i have/ poems/ big thighs/ lil tits/ &so much love/ will you take it from me this one time/ please this is for you”

“I started writing because there's an absence of things I was familiar with or that I dreamed about. One of my senses of anger is related to this vacancy - a yearning I had as a teenager... and when I get ready to write, I think I'm trying to fill that.”

“I had - there were three strokes, and I lost my ability to read and write and speak, and it really put me by the wayside for a number of years.”

“My characters don't talk necessarily in a normal American way of talking. They talk a little different.”

“I've still got my characters in my head, and I can still hear them. When I go to the grocery store, I hear them.”

“Art gives us the opportunity to have clarity as well as hope that we might be able to survive a situation, or hope that we can find a way out of it without too much more injury to ourselves.”

“but bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysicaldilemma/ i havent conquered yet/ do you see the pointmy spirit is too ancient to understand the separation of soul & gender/ my love is too delicate to have thrown back on my facemy love is too delicate to have thrown back on my face my love is too beautiful to have thrown back on my face my love is too sanctified to have thrown back on my face my love is too magic to have thrown back on my face my love is too saturday nite to have thrown back on my face my love is too complicated to have thrown back on my face my love is too music to have thrown back on my face”

“My family moved around a lot, so I don't have any friends that I had all my life, but I did have annual trips back to Queens.”

“Multiculturalism is a white people joke.”

“Ever since I realized there waz someone callt/ a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag/ i been tryin not to be that & leave bitterness/ in somebody else's cup...”

“I remember that my mother used to take me to see ballets, especially if there were black people in them.”

“I was chastised for writing several obituaries for Malcolm X, exploring different aspects of his writing. One teacher in particular told me, didn't I think I was beating a dead horse? and dismissively threw my paper on my desk.”

“Before I went to college, I went to the S.N.C.C. office three times a week to offer my services and catch up on my 'Liberator' magazine. The other two days, I went to the Lycee Francais to keep my French crisp. I felt comfortable in the diversity of my worlds.”

“i done forgot all abt wordsaint got no definitions”

“There was nothing to aspire to, no one to honor. Sojourner Truth wasn't a big enough role model for me. I couldn't go around abolishing slavery.”

“Spell-check ruins my work. It fixes all my slang and dialect into standard English. So I'm caught in a tangle of technology that feels very foreign to me.”

“Luckily, my father and my mother liked us to talk, so they encouraged us to talk, so that the girls in my house, they're all very powerful speakers and powerful agents of their own will, as is my brother.”

“one thing I don’t needis any more apologiesi got sorry greetin me at my front dooryou can keep yrsi don’t know what to do wit emthey don’t open doorsor bring the sun backthey don’t make me happyor get a mornin paperdidn’t nobody stop usin my tears to wash carscuz a sorry.”

“When I die, I will not be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves.”