All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart.
Art was the flower of life and despite the years of ill-treatment Black artists were among its most glorious blossoms.
Cooking is like writing poetry: Be careful in the choice of your ingredients and respectful of how they work together. That’s true of all efforts in life.
Every experience shapes your writing, being stuck in a car on a lonely bridge, or dancing at a prom, being the it girl on the beach, all of those things influence your life, they influence how you write, and the topics you choose to write about.
For a person who grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed to me without explanation, libraries and books said, “Here I am, read me.” Take time to read.
I knew that words, despite the old saying, never fail. And my reading had given me words to spare.
I realized I was not a writer who teaches, but a teacher who writes.
I’ve had people explain to me what one of my poems meant, and I’ve been surprised that it meant that to them. If a person can use a poem of mine to interpret her life or his life, good. I can’t control that. Nor would I want to.
If a little learning is dangerous, a little fame can be devastating.
Let me tell so much truth. I want to tell the truth in my work. The truth will lead me to the light.
In that little town in Arkansas, whenever my grandmother saw me reading poetry she would say, “Sister, Mama loves to see you read the poetry because that will put starch in your backbone.”
Never put your sheroes and heroes up on pedestals; placing them on pedestals is setting yourself up for disappointment. You must take the good that people do and put the bright light on that good, but human beings can never withstand such light without showing their shadows and warts. All mortals have their shortcomings and weaknesses. Their skills and deeds are what we must applaud. Don’t fall victim to the cult of personality.
Only poets care about what happened to the snows of yesteryear.
Some entertainers have tried to make art of their coarseness, but in their public crudeness they have merely revealed their own vast senses of personal inferiority. When they heap mud upon themselves and allow their tongues to wag with vulgarity, they expose their belief that they are not worth loving and in fact are unlovable.
There was going to be a storm and it was a perfect night for rereading Jane Eyre.
We must be suspicious of censors who say they mean to prohibit our art for our own welfare.
Without the presence and energy of art in our lives, we are capable of engaging in heartless activities without remorse and cruelties with clear consciences.
