Lucille Clifton Quotes

Quotes about:

• In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different thing.

  Lucille Clifton

  Different, Asking, Bigger

  74 Copy quote

• Come celebrate with me that every day something has tried to kill me and has failed.

  Lucille Clifton

  Celebrate, Kill Me

  Lucille Clifton (2013). “The Book of Light”, p.25, Copper Canyon Press

  64 Copy quote

• We cannot create what we can't imagine.

  Lucille Clifton

  Imagine

  45 Copy quote

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

  Lucille Clifton

  Attitude, African American, Perception

  "Fooling with Words (Part One)". billmoyers.com. May 28, 1999.

  95 Copy quote

• Say it clear, and it will be beautiful.

  Lucille Clifton

  Beautiful, Clear

  26 Copy quote

• I write from my knowledge not my lack, from my strength not my weakness. I am not interested if anyone knows whether or not I am familiar with big words, I am interested in trying to render big ideas in a simple way. I am interested in being understood not admired.

  Lucille Clifton

  Writing, Simple, Ideas

  75 Copy quote

• Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.

  Lucille Clifton

  Matter, Language, Poetry Is

  57 Copy quote

• Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.

  Lucille Clifton

  Eye, Pairs, Endure

  58 Copy quote

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

  Lucille Clifton

  Children, Doors, Answers

  Lucille Clifton (1980). “Two-headed woman”, Univ of Massachusetts Pr

  51 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lucille Clifton

  Crazy, Mean, People

  74 Copy quote

• We need new words for what this is, this hunger entering our loneliness like birds, stunning our eyes into rays of hope. we need the flutter that can save us, something that will swirl across the face of what we have become and bring us grace.

  Lucille Clifton

  Loneliness, Eye, Bird

  49 Copy quote

• I think that were beginning to remember that the first poets didn't come out of a classroom, that poetry began when somebody walked off of a savanna or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, "Ahhh." That was the first poem.

  Lucille Clifton

  Thinking, Sky, Poetry

  49 Copy quote

• Even when the universe made it quite clear to me that I was mistaken in my certainties ... I did not break. The shattering of my sureties did not shatter me.

  Lucille Clifton

  Adversity, Break, Made

  42 Copy quote

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

  Lucille Clifton

  Memories, Want, Remember

  Lucille Clifton (1993). “Next: new poems”, Bookslinger

  48 Copy quote

• Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.

  Lucille Clifton

  Knowing, Wonder

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Lucille Clifton

  Letting Go, Believe, Fall

  Lucille Clifton (1974). “An ordinary woman”

  55 Copy quote

• won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

  Lucille Clifton

  Hands, Bridges, Everyday

  Lucille Clifton (2013). “The Book of Light”, p.25, Copper Canyon Press

  40 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lucille Clifton

  Art, Writing, Thinking

  33 Copy quote

• may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back

  Lucille Clifton

  Kissing, Wind, May

  Lucille Clifton (1991). “Quilting: poems, 1987-1990”, BOA Editions Ltd.

  33 Copy quote

• Things don't fall apart. Things hold. Lines connect in thin ways that last and last and lives become generations made out of pictures and words just kept.

  Lucille Clifton

  Inspirational, Life, Fall

  Lucille Clifton (1976). “Generations: a memoir”, Random House (NY)

  37 Copy quote

• All people, even one's own children, come with baggage. When they're little, you have to help them carry it. But when they grow up, you have to do that difficult thing of setting their baggage down and taking up your own again.

  Lucille Clifton

  Children, Growing Up, People

  43 Copy quote

• Intellect doesn't translate across cultures; intuition does.

  Lucille Clifton

  Intelligence, Intuition, Doe

  23 Copy quote

• People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry, and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.

  Lucille Clifton

  Mistake, Writing, Hymns

  20 Copy quote

• these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips

  Lucille Clifton

  Black, Magic, Want

  Lucille Clifton (1980). “Two-headed woman”, Univ of Massachusetts Pr

  31 Copy quote

• I don't go get a poem. It calls me and I accept it.

  Lucille Clifton

  Accepting, Call Me

  10 Copy quote

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