Amanda Gorman Quotes

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

We write
Because you might listen.

Words, too, are a type of combat, for we always become what we refuse to say.

There is nothing so agonizing, or so dangerous,
as a memory unexpressed, unexplored, unexplained, &
unexploded. Grief is the grenade that always goes off.

Never forget that to be alone Has always been a price for some & a privilege for others.

Please.
Do not ask us who we are.
The hardest part of grief
Is giving it a name.

If we're to live up to our own time,
then victory won't lie in the blade.
But in all the bridges we've made,
that is the promise to glade,
the hill we climb.
If only we dare.
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it's the past we step into
and how we repair it.

Since the world is round, There is no way to walk away From each other, for even then We are coming back together. Some distances, if allowed to grow, Are merely the greatest proximities.

Again, language matters.
Children have been taught-
America: without her, democracy fails.
But the truth is:
America without her democracy fails.

Last year we stepped onto an elevator.
We politely asked the white lady behind us
If she could please take the next lift
To continue social distancing.
Her face flared up like a cross in the night.
Are you kidding me? she yelled,
Like we'd just declared
Elevators for us only
Or Yous must enter from the back
Or No yous or dogs allowed
Or We have the right to refuse
Humanity to anyone

Why it's so perturbing for privileged groups to follow
restrictions of place & personhood.
Doing so means for once wearing the chains their power
has shackled on the rest of us.

It is to surrender the one difference that kept them separate & thus superior.

Meanwhile, for generations we've stayed home, [segre] gated, kept out of parks, kept out of playgrounds, kept out of pools, kept out of public spaces, kept out of outside spaces, kept out of outer space, kept out of movie theaters, kept out of malls, kept out of restrooms, kept out of restaurants, kept out of taxis, kept out of buses, kept out of beaches, kept out of ballot boxes, kept out of office, kept out of the army, kept out of the hospitals, kept out of hotels, kept out of clubs, kept out of jobs, kept out of schools, kept out of sports, kept out of streets, kept out of water, kept out of land, kept out of kept in kept from kept behind kept below kept down kept without life.

Some were asked to walk a fraction / of our exclusion for a year & it almost destroyed all they thought they were. Yet here we are. Still walking, still kept.

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.

If we merge mercy with might, and might
with right, Then love becomes our legacy, And change, our children’s birthright.

Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world, when day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry asea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.

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 our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. 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 that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to her own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our nation r

Somehow, we’ve weathered and witnessed A nation that isn’t broken, but simply
unfinished.

History and elegy are akin. The word “history” comes from an ancient Greek verb ίστωρειν meaning “to ask.” One who asks about things — about their dimensions, weight, location, moods, names, holiness, smell — is an historian. But the asking is not idle. It is when you are asking about something that you realize you yourself have survived it, and so you must carry it, or fashion it into a thing that carries itself. — Anne Carson