12 Quotes & Sayings By Ntozake Shange

Ntozake Shange was born in the segregated South in 1946. Her mother, a dancer, was her first teacher. When she was 6, she left home to attend the all-black Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she was awarded a BA in English and became involved in the theater department. She returned to Baltimore, where her father had moved, and began writing poetry Read more

Her first collection, For colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, was published in 1978. The book went on to win the National Book Award for poetry. It is considered one of the most important African American poetry collections of all time.

She has also written works for children and adults, including A Cloud of Unknowing (1986), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize; The Meeting (1990), for which she won another Pulitzer; and Jubilee (1995). She has also received Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships, as well as awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is professor emerita at Brown University; she lives in Providence with her husband, Robert Martin Smith; their three sons; and three grandchildren.

I found god in myselfand i loved heri loved her...
1
I found god in myselfand i loved heri loved her fiercely Ntozake Shange
2
But bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysicaldilemma/ i havent conquered yet/ do you see the pointmy spirit is too ancient to understand the separation of soul & gender/ my love is too delicate to have thrown back on my facemy love is too delicate to have thrown back on my face my love is too beautiful to have thrown back on my face my love is too sanctified to have thrown back on my face my love is too magic to have thrown back on my face my love is too saturday nite to have thrown back on my face my love is too complicated to have thrown back on my face my love is too music to have thrown back on my face . Ntozake Shange
3
One thing I don’t needis any more apologiesi got sorry greetin me at my front dooryou can keep yrsi don’t know what to do wit emthey don’t open doorsor bring the sun backthey don’t make me happyor get a mornin paperdidn’t nobody stop usin my tears to wash carscuz a sorry. Ntozake Shange
4
I done forgot all abt wordsaint got no definitions Ntozake Shange
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Ever since I realized there waz someone callt/ a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag/ i been tryin not to be that & leave bitterness/ in somebody else's cup... Ntozake Shange
6
I am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt memore than i ever danced outta/ i am ready to die like a lily in thedesert/ & i cdnt let you in on it cuz i didnt know/ hereis what i have/ poems/ big thighs/ lil tits/ &so much love/ will you take it from me this one time/ please this is for you Ntozake Shange
7
I'm only human, & inadequacy is what makes us human, & if we was perfect we wdnt have nothin to strive for, so you might as well go on & forgive me pretty baby, cause i'm sorry Ntozake Shange
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I found god in myself& i loved her/ i loved her fiercely Ntozake Shange
9
The slaves who were ourselves had known terror intimately, confused sunrise with pain, & accepted indifference as kindness. Ntozake Shange
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Our society allows people to be absolutely neurotic and totally out of touch with their feelings and everyone else's feelings and yet be very respectable. Ntozake Shange
11
I started writing because there's an absence of things I was familiar with or that I dreamed about. One of my senses of anger is related to this vacancy - a yearning I had as a teenager... and when I get ready to write, I think I'm trying to fill that. Ntozake Shange