We cannot create what we can't imagine.

- Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be exce…

- Lucille Clifton

I write from my knowledge not my lack, from my strength not my weakness. I am not interested if anyone knows whether or not I am familiar with big wo…

- Lucille Clifton

Say it clear, and it will be beautiful.

- Lucille Clifton

What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.

- Lucille Clifton

Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.

- Lucille Clifton

In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different…

- Lucille Clifton

You might as well answer the door, my child, the truth is furiously knocking.

- Lucille Clifton

I do not feel inhibited or bound by what I am. That does not mean that I have never had bad scenes relating to being Black and/or a woman, it means t…

- Lucille Clifton