74 Quotes by Ntozake Shange

  • Author Ntozake Shange
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    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.

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  • Author Ntozake Shange
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    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. . .

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  • Author Ntozake Shange
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    White people use their literature to maintain culture. That's why you find references to Milton and Spencer and Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky in contemporary novels.

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  • Author Ntozake Shange
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    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

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  • Author Ntozake Shange
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    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.

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

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