Amanda Gorman Quotes

We became paid professionals of pain,
Specialists in suffering,
Aces of the ache,
Masters of the moan.

We can only fully understand language by what doesn't survive it.

There is power in being robbed
& still choosing to dance.

Words matter, for Language is an ark. Yes, Language is an art, An articulate artifact. Language is a life craft. Yes, Language is a life raft.

Every second, what we feel
For our people & our planet
Almost brings us to our knees,
A compassion that nearly destroys
Us with its massiveness.
There is no love for or in this world
That doesn't feel both bright & unbearable,
Uncarriable.

Most of them immigrants. These people came Promised Land. They came fresh & they got Destroyed.

Since the world is round, There is no way to walk away From each other, for even then We are coming back together.

Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished. . .
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn't mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose

To put it plain / we have shipwrecked the earth / soiled the soil / & run the ground aground. / Listen. We are the loud toll / on this planet. / Our future needs us / alarmed. Man is a myth / in the making.

We added a thousand false steps To our walk tracker today Because every step we’ve taken Has required more than we had to give.

We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried

COMPASS This year the size of a sea Sick to its stomach. Like a page, we are only legible When opened to one another. For what is a book If not foremost a body, Waiting & wanting — Yearning to be whole, Full of itself. This book is full Of ourselves. The past is one Passionate déjà vu, One scene already seen. In history’s form, we find our own faces, Recognizable but unremembered, Familiar yet forgotten. Please. Do not ask us who we are. The hardest part of grief Is giving it a name. The pain pulls us apart, Like lips about to speak. Without language nothing can live At all, let alone Beyond itself. Lost as we feel, there is no better Compass than compassion. We find ourselves not by being The most seen, but the most seeing. We watch a toddler Freewheel through warm grass, Not fleeing, just running, the way rivers do, For it is in their unfettered nature. We smile, our whole face cleared By that single dazzling thing. How could we not be altered.

I can hear change humming
In its loudest, proudest song.
I don’t fear change coming,
And so I sing along.

Change is made of choices,
& choices are made of character.

Anxiety is a living body,
Poised beside us like a shadow.
It is the last creature standing,
The only beast who loves us
Enough to stay.