Amanda Gorman Quotes

Our country, which we do not
forsake for being un-great, that
we should find by being good.

Together, we envision a land that is liberated, not lawless. We create a future that is free, not flawless. Again & again, over & over, We will stride up every mountainside, Magnanimous & modest. We will be protected & served By a force that is honored & honest. This is more than protest. It’s a promise.

We were told to never use I when writing, because eliminating this voice makes arguments legitimate. But we realize there is nothing that convinces like the self does - our life, our body & its beating, proving it's own jagged point. Tell me what is more powerful than the unerased.

There is always light.
Only if we are brave enough to see it.
There is always light.
Only if we are brave enough to be it.

We are walking beside our ancestors,
Their drums roar for us,
Their feet stomp at our life.
There is power in being robbed
& still choosing to dance.

Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.

The funerals without families,
Weddings in waiting,
The births in isolation.
Let no one again
Have to begin, love, or end, alone.

Disease is physiological death, Loneliness is a social one, Where the old We collapses like a lung.

When day comes, we step out of the shade, Aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it, For there is always light, If only we’re brave enough to see it, If only we’re brave enough to be it.

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 thin.
How could we not be altered.

Riots are red Violence is blue We’re sick of dying How ’bout you

Love the earth / like we've failed it. To put it plain / we have shipwrecked the earth [...] Listen. [...] / Our future nedds us / alarmed. Man is a myth / in the making. / What is now dust will not return, / not the beloveds / nor their breath [...] / Extinction is a chorus / of quiet punching / that same note.

The densest despair takes
Us to no ordinary joy.
Sometimes diving
Into the deep inside us
Is the only way
We rise above it.

If we merge mercy with might, and might with right,
Then love becomes our legacy,
And change, our children's birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better
than the one we were left.

So while once we asked: How could we possibly prevail
over catastrophe?
Now we assert: How could catastrophe possibly prevail
over us?