Amanda Gorman Quotes

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've learned that quiet isn't always peace.

When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn balloons 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.

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

It's said that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is this: a vine that sneaks up a tree, killing not by poison, but by blocking out its light.

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

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

Lost as we feel, there is no better Compass than compassion. We find ourselves not by being The most seen, but the most seeing.

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.

For there is always light, If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

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

By Goodbye, we truly mean: Let us be able to say hello again.

Loss is the cost of loving

That is the promised glade, The hill we climb, if only we dare it: Because being American is more than a pride we inherit— It’s the past we step into, and how we repair it.

The first bud of spring sings the other seeds into joining her uprising.

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.

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid

Only when we're drowning do we understand how fierce our feet can kick.

We don’t need a gown. We don’t need a stage. 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.

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

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.

For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

It’s said that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is this: a vine that sneaks up a tree, killing not by poison, but by blocking out its light.

In this truth, in this faith, we trust. For while we have our eyes on the future, History has its eyes on us.

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

The only way to correctly predict The future is to pave it, Is to brave it.

We write Because you might listen.

To tell the truth, then, is to risk being remembered by its fiction.

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

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

we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation Our blunders become their burdens But one thing is certain: 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 with

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

The question isn't if we can weather this unknown, But how we will weather this unknown together.

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

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.

Grief, like glass, can be both a mirror & a window, enabling us to look both in & out, then & now & how. In other words, we become a window pain. Only somewhere in loss do we find the grace to gaze up & out of ourselves.

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

When day comes, we ask ourselves: Where can we find light In this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We braved the belly of the beast, We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, And 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.

We might not be fully sure of all that we are. & yet we have endured all that we were.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, And the norms and notions of what “just is” Isn’t always justice.

We will not march back to what was, But move to what shall be: A country that is bruised but whole, Benevolent but bold, Fierce and free.

For there is always light, If only we’re brave enough to see it, If only we’re brave enough to be it.

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.

Our scars are the brightest Parts of us.

Of all the stars the most beautiful Is nothing more than a monster, Just as starved & stranded as we are.

Some days, we just need a place Where we can bleed in peace.

Always remember that What happened to us Happened through us.

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

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

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

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.

Life is not what is promised, But what is sought. These bones, not what is found, But what we’ve fought. Our truth, not what we said, But what we thought. Our lesson, all we have taken & all we have brought.

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.

The Spanish Influenza did not originate in Spain. In fact the first recorded case was in the United States, in Kansas, on March 9th, 1918. Beware the Ides of March. But because Spain was neutral in World War I, it did not sensor reports of the disease to the public. To tell the truth then, is to risk being remembered by its fiction. Countless countries laid blame to one another. What the US called the Spanish Influenza, Spain called the French Flu, or the Naples Soldier. What Germans dubbed the Russian Pest, the Russians called Chinese Flu.

That even as we grieved, we grew, That even as we hurt, we hoped, That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together.

The crescent moon, The night’s lucent lesion. We are felled oaks beneath it, Branches full of empty. Look closer. What we share is more Than what we’ve shed.

Strength is separate from survival. What endures isn't always what escapes & what is withered can still withstand.

Because being American is more than a pride we inherit-- It's the past we step into, and how we repair it.

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

Like a page, we are only legible when opened to one another.

We teach children: Leave a mark on the world. What leads a man to shoot up Souls but the desire to mark Up the globe?

Shall this leave us bitter? Or better? Grieve. Then choose.

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.

What we have lived Remains indecipherable. & yet we remain. & still, we write. & so, we write. Watch us move above the fog Like a promontory at dusk. Shall this leave us biter? Or better?

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.

We do not hope for no reason. Hope is the reason for itself. We don't care for our beloveds For any specific, singular logic, But, rather, for the whole of them. That is to say, Love is justified by loving.

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 its own jagged point.

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.

A virus is fought inside us, While violence is fought amongst us. In both, our triumph is not in conquering others, But conquering the most destructive agents & instincts that we carry Within our mortal forms. Hate is a virus. A virus demands a body. What we mean is: Hate only survives when hosted in humans. If we are to give it anything, Let it be our sorrow & never our skin. To love just may be The fight of our lives.

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

We wrap our arms around ourselves, as if we can possibly hold the whole of who we are within us--everything that makes us this unearthly speck we are. Perhaps tomorrow cannot wait to be today. In this one life, we, like our joy, are fleeting but certain, abstract & absolute, ghosts who glow & glow.

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.

During COVID, we've all been kept out of things. Gorman's poem eloquently lists many of the things we've been kept out of. Then she wrote - "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 and it almost destroyed all they thought they were. Yet here we are. Still Walking. Still kept. To be kept to the edges of existence is the inheritance of the marginalized.

We ignite not in the light, but in lack thereof, For it is in loss that we truly learn to love. In this chaos, we will discover clarity. In suffering, we must find solidarity.

Because, as she once wrote, ‘Every day, we write the future.

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

There is always light, if only your brave enough to see it. If only your brave enough to be it.

I hum with a hundred hearts, Each of us lifting a hand. I use my strengths and my smarts, Take a knee to make a stand.

Our wounds, too, are our windows. Through them we watch the world.

The only way to correctly predict The future is to pave it, Is to brave it. The breakage is where we begin. The rupture is for remembering.

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.

The norms and notions of what "just is' isn't always "justice".

And the norms and notions of what “just is” Isn’t always justice.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not easy for us to lie. Even the body has tells, even our blood runs toward truth.

It isn't knowing, but remembering, that makes us create.

We hear men coughing Then the stiff, loaded silence Of coughing no more.

The late sun looks Peelable in our palm. That is to say, distance Renders all massiveness Carriable.

Poke the scar until it speaks. This is how every memory starts.

To be haunted is to be hunted By a history that is still hurting

There is power in being robbed & still choosing to dance

This feeling might be pain, poetry, or both. But at least it is no lie. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Ignorance is to miss: to block ourselves from seeing sky.

That even as we grieved, we grew, That even as we hurt, we hoped, That even as we tired, we tried.

Poetry is an art form, but, to me, it’s also a weapon, it’s also an instrument. It’s the ability to make ideas that have been known, felt and said.” Inaugural poet @TheAmandaGorman

Perhaps to burn is the most basic Purification there is. Time said: You must transform to survive. We said: Not over our dead body. What can we call a country that destroys Itself just because it can? A nation that would char Rather than change? Our only word for this is Home.

Non-being, i.e., distance from society—social distance—is the very heritage of the oppressed. Which means to the oppressor, social distance is a humiliation. It is to be something less than free, or worse, someone less-than-white. For what does the Karen carry but her dwindling power, dying & desperate? Dangerous & dangling like a gun hung from a tongue?

Fundamentally supremacism means doing anything to keep one's soul conceit, even if it means losing one's soul. It means not wearing the mask that would save you, because it would mean taking off one's privilege. It means always choosing poisonous pride over preservation, pride over nation, pride over anyone or anything. This realization is not ours. It is.

By Hello, we mean: Let us not say goodbye again. There is someone we would die for. Feel that fierce, unshifting truth, That braced & ready sacrifice. That’s what love does: It makes a fact faced beyond fear. We have lost too much to lose. We lean against each other again, The way water bleeds into itself. This glassed hour, paused, Bursts like a loaded star, Belonging always to us. What more must we believe in.

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.

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 rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, 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 one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. 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.