74 Quotes by Ntozake Shange

  • Author Ntozake Shange
  • Quote

    I think art is a healing force, and if we give in to the joy that can be found in art, then we are able to sustain ourselves in spite of ourselves.

  • Share

  • Author Ntozake Shange
  • Quote

    Spell-check ruins my work. It fixes all my slang and dialect into standard English. So I'm caught in a tangle of technology that feels very foreign to me.

  • Share

  • Author Ntozake Shange
  • Quote

    I've still got my characters in my head, and I can still hear them. When I go to the grocery store, I hear them.

  • Share

  • Author Ntozake Shange
  • Quote

    I hadn't published a book of poetry in over a decade because I've been very ill. As I got better and started to write, I said, 'Wow, even as an old woman, I could have a selected book of poems.'

  • Share


  • Author Ntozake Shange
  • Quote

    There was nothing to aspire to, no one to honor. Sojourner Truth wasn't a big enough role model for me. I couldn't go around abolishing slavery.

  • Share


  • Author Ntozake Shange
  • Quote

    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.

  • Share

  • Author Ntozake Shange
  • Quote

    I remember that my mother used to take me to see ballets, especially if there were black people in them.

  • Share