Shange Quotes

When I die, I will no be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves. ~ Ntozake Shange

One thing I don't need
is any more apologies
i got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yrs
i don't know what to do wit em
they don't open doors
or bring the sun back
they don't make me happy
or get a mornin paper
didn't nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars
cuz a sorry. ~ Ntozake Shange

I loved you on purpose
i was open on purpose
i still crave vulnerability & close talk
& i'm not even sorry bout you bein sorry
you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna
just dont give it to me
i cant use another sorry
next time
you should admit
you're mean/ low-down/ triflin/ & no count straight out
steada bein sorry alla the time
enjoy bein yrself ~ Ntozake Shange

I usedta live in the world
really be in the world
free & sweet talkin
good mornin & thank-you & nice day
uh huh
i cant now
i cant be nice to nobody
nice is such a rip-off
regular beauty & a smile in the street
is just a set-up ~ Ntozake Shange

I got 15 trumpets where other women got hips
& a upright bass for both sides of my heart ~ Ntozake Shange

We need a god who bleeds now
a god whose wounds are not
some small male vengeance
some pitiful concession to humility
a desert swept with dryin marrow in honor of the lord
we need a god who bleeds
spreads her lunar vulva & showers us in shades of scarlet
thick & warm like the breath of her
our mothers tearing to let us in
this place breaks open
like our mothers bleeding
the planet is heaving mourning our ignorance
the moon tugs the seas
to hold her/to hold her
embrace swelling hills/i am
not wounded i am bleeding to life
we need a god who bleeds now
whose wounds are not the end of anything ~ Ntozake Shange

The slaves who were ourselves had known terror intimately, confused sunrise with pain, & accepted indifference as kindness. ~ Ntozake Shange

I hit my head against the wall because I don't want to know all the terrible things that I know about. I don't want to feel all these wretched things, but they're in me already. If I don't get rid of them, I'm not ever going to feel anything else. ~ Ntozake Shange

Women are the reason of the existence of men. ~ Nkosiyazi Shange

Creation is everything you do. Make something. ~ Ntozake Shange

Fear of women is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Nkosiyazi Shange

African-Americans are always forced to learn the other culture, but the other culture is not forced to learn ours. I went to acting school at Juilliard, and we learned Shakespeare and Shaw, but we never did the work of a single African-American playwright, not August Wilson or Ntozake Shange or Imir Baraka. ~ Tracie Thoms

Our dreams draw blood from old sores. ~ Ntozake Shange

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

i found god in myself
& i loved her/ i loved her fiercely ~ Ntzoake Shange

I found god in myself and i loved her i loved her fiercely ~ Ntozake Shange

Multiculturalism isn't about culture, it's about power. ~ Ntozake Shange

Sassafras had never wanted to weave, she just couldn't help it. There was something about the feel of raw fleece and finished threads and dainty patterned pieces that was as essential to her as dancing to Carmen De Lavallade, or singing to Aretha Franklin. Her mama had done it, and her mama before that; and making cloth was the only tradition Sassafras inherited that gave her a sense of womanhood that was rich and sensuous, not tired and stingy. ~ Ntozake Shange

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

Authors I've longed to write like - but realize I actually can't even begin to - include Poe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kafka, Daniil Kharms, Witold Gombrowicz, Emily Dickinson, Robert Walser, Barbara Comyns, Ntozake Shange, Camille Laurens, Zbigniew Herbert, and Jose Saramago. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

I'm a firm believer that language and how we use language determines how we act, and how we act then determines our lives and other people's lives. ~ Ntozake Shange

I've never thought of leaving the South, never. ~ Ntozake Shange

I done forgot all abt words
aint got no definitions ~ Ntozake Shange

I am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt me
more than i ever danced outta/ i am ready to die like a lily in the
desert/ & i cdnt let you in on it cuz i didnt know/ here
is 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

without any assistance or guidance from you
i have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a day
i have been stood up four times
i've left 7 packages on yr doorstep
forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i left
town so i cd send to you have been no help to me
on my job
you call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdays
so i cd drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to work
charmin charmin
but you are of no assistance
i want you to know
this waz an experiment
to see how selifsh i cd be
if i wd really carry on to snare a possible lover
if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another
if i cd stand not being wanted
when i wanted to be wanted
& i cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
i am endin this affair

this note is attached to a plant
i've been waterin since the day i met you
you may water it
yr damn self ~ Ntozake Shange

I'm committed to the idea that one of the few things human beings have to offer is the richness of unconscious and conscious emotional responses to being alive ... The kind of esteem that's given to brightness/smartness obliterates average people or slow learners from participating fully in human life, particularly technical and intellectual life. But you cannot exclude any human being from emotional participation. ~ Ntozake Shange

And this is for Colored girls who have considered suicide, but are moving to the ends of their own rainbows. ~ Ntozake Shange

When words & manners leave you no space for yourself
make
very personal
very clear
& your obstructions will join you or disappear. ~ Ntozake Shange

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

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

(Interviews Ntozake Shange) "What do you think an artist's job is?"
"To keep our sensibilities alive, so we aren't numb by our struggles to survive. That's what I think our job is right now. ~ Eileen Myles