Quotes to inspire and reflect

The turtle lives ’twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex. I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile.

Murmuring gently Over fraises du bois , “I’m so ashamed of being white.”

Candy Is dandy But liquor Is quicker.

What happens to a dream deferred? Maybe it just sags Or does it explode?

As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me— although you’re older—and white— and somewhat more free.

Good morning, daddy! Ain’t you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred?

Wear it Like a banner For the proud— Not like a shroud.

Listen, Christ, You did alright in your day, I reckon— But that day’s gone now. They ghosted you up a swell story, too, Called it Bible— But it’s dead now.

O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet—

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother.

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

I got the Weary Blues And I can’t be satisfied.

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway… He did a lazy sway… To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.

I am a Negro:

Rest at pale evening… A tall slim tree… Night coming tenderly Black like me.

In the middle of the road there was a stone there was a stone in the middle of the road there was a stone in the middle of the road there was a stone.

I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

But I believe that since my life began The most I’ve had is just A talent to amuse.

I have so fiercely dreamed of you And walked so far and spoken of you so, Loved a shade of you so hard That now I’ve no more left of you.

I’ll see you again, Whenever spring breaks through again.

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

Patio, heaven’s watercourse. The patio is the slope down which the sky flows into the house. Serenely eternity waits at the crossway of the stars.

The light is buried under chains and noises in impudent challenge of rootless science. Through the suburbs sleepless people stagger, as though just delivered from a shipwreck of blood.

The New York dawn has four columns of mud and a hurricane of black doves that paddle in putrescent waters.

I will not see it! Tell the moon to come for I do not want to see the blood of Ignacio on the sand.

Black are the horses. The horseshoes are black. On the dark capes glisten stains of ink and of wax. Their skulls are leaden, which is why they don’t weep. With their patent leather souls they come down the street.

At five in the afternoon. Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! It was five by all the clocks! It was five in the shade of the afternoon!

Green, how much I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship upon the sea and the horse in the mountain.

I touched her sleeping breasts, and they opened to me suddenly like spikes of hyacinth.

In the parched path I have seen the good lizard (one drop of crocodile) meditating.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

Truly, I live in dark times! The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs Has simply not yet had The terrible news.

Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness, Could not ourselves be kind. But you, when at last it comes to pass That man can help his fellow man, Do not judge us Too harshly.

Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.

Oh! Moon of Alabama We now must say good-bye We’ve lost our good old mama And must have whiskey Oh, you know why!

George Brush is my name America’s my nation Luddington’s my dwelling place And Heaven’s my destination.

Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear— And he shows them pearly white— Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear— And he keeps it out of sight.

Up from the bronze, I saw Water without a flaw Rush to its rest in air, Reach to its rest, and fall.

There was so much to love I could not love it all; I could not love it enough.

Women have no wilderness in them, They are provident instead, Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread.

I burned my life, that I might find A passion wholly of the mind, Thought divorced from eye and bone, Ecstasy come to breath alone.

Impossible men: idle, illiterate, For whose appearance even in City Parks Has God’s supply of tolerable husbands Or do I always over-value woman It might be so.

Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark—a shining space With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace.

Farewell sadness Good morning sadness. 2

As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever.

a hopeless case if—listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go

I was born to know you To give you your name Freedom. 1

pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease.