Lucille Clifton Quotes

“What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.”

“don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.”

“You might as well answer the door, my child,
the truth is furiously knocking.”

“the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves”

“they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering mine”

“I do not feel inhibited or bound by what I am. That does not mean that I have never had bad scenes relating to being Black and/or a woman, it means that other people’s craziness has not managed to make me crazy.”

“born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?”

“One thing poetry teaches us, if anything, is that everything is connected…There is so much history that we have not validated.”