5 Good Quotes by Black Writers
Audre Lord / photo credit: Jack Mitchell, Getty Images
When there is overwhelming uncertainty, a cause to fight for or even a grandeur moment of bliss, we search for the right words to get us through it. Sometimes a phrase helps us believe in what we’re doing, how we’re feeling and offers a side of personal perspective that we didn’t realize was there. Black womxn writers have always stepped up to be the voice of aggression, loathing, honesty and compassion of the past, present and future generations. They write what they know.
“For there is always a light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
- AMANDA GORMAN, AMERICAN POET AND NATIONAL YOUTH POET LAUREATE
“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
- TONI MORRISON, AMERICAN NOVELIST
*photo via The New Yorker
“You are never stronger...than when you land on the other side of despair.”
- ZADIE SMITH, ENGLISH NOVELIST AND ESSAYIST
*photo credit: Dominique Nabokov / Baltimore Sun
“She was smart enough to want more but tired enough to accept the way things were.”
- ROXANE GAY, AMERICAN WRITER
“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”
- AUDRE LORDE, AMERICAN WRITER, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, FEMINIST, LIBRARIAN
*photo credit: Joan E. Biren / Swann Auction Galleries
