Gwendolyn Brooks

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell I hold my honey and I store my bread In little jars and cabinets of my will. I label clearly, and each latch and lid I bid, Be firm till I return from hell. I am very hungry. I am incomplete. And none can tell when I may dine again. No man can give me any word but Wait, The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in; Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt Drag out to their last dregs and I resume On such legs as are left me, in such heart As I can manage, remember to go home, My taste will not have turned insensitive To honey and bread old purity could love.

Books are meat and medicineand flame and flight and flowersteel, stitch, cloud and clout,and drumbeats on the air.

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.

Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home.

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.

I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.

It is brave to be involved.

Writing is a delicious agony.

We real cool. WeLeft school. WeLurk late. WeStrike straight. WeSing sin. WeThin gin. WeJazz June. WeDie soon.

Say to them,say to the down-keepers,the sun-slappers,the self-soilers,the harmony-hushers,"Even if you are not ready for dayit 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.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.And be it gash or gold it will not comeAgain in this identical disguise.

Poetry is life distilled.

Live not for Battles Won.Live not for The-End-of-the-Song. Live in the along.

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

She was afraid to suggest to him that to most people, nothing "happens." That most people merely live from day to day until they die. That, after he had been dead a year, doubtless fewer than five people would think of him oftener than once a year. That there might even come a year when no one on earth would think of him at all.

Surely--But I am very off from that.From surely. From indeed. From the decent arrowthat was my clean naivete and my faith.This morning, men deliver wounds and death.They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow.And I doubt all. You. Or a violet.