The Infinite Library

“First fight. Then fiddle.”

“Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come Again in this identical guise.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“We are each other's magnitude and bond.”

“Books are meat and medicine and flame and flight and flower steel, stitch, cloud and clout, and drumbeats on the air.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“Poetry is life distilled.”

“It is brave to be involved.”

“When you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you're telling them that they're less than somebody else.”

“Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come Again in this identical disguise.”

“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.”

“Writing is a delicious agony.”

“Surely--But I am very off from that. From surely. From indeed. From the decent arrow that 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.”

“Truth 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? Though we have wept for him, Though we have prayed All through the night-years— What if we wake one shimmering morning to Hear the fierce hammering Of his firm knuckles Hard on the door? Shall we not shudder?— Shall we not flee Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter Of the familiar Propitious haze? Sweet is it, sweet is it To sleep in the coolness Of snug unawareness. The dark hangs heavily Over the eyes.”