Quotes from Toni Cade Bambara

Learning still, Old Wife, learning still." "But ain't learned to quit casting a voluptuous eye on the young mens, I notice," chirping her teeth. "When you gonna learn, you ole stick in the mud, that 'good' ain't got nothing to do with it? They packed me off to seminary thinking helping and healing and nosing around was about being good. It was only that I was Ã¢â'¬Â¦ available.

Anywhere at all in the universe, but I choose to be here with this growler scowler. And good ain't the key. It's just that I'm available to any and every adventure of the human breath.

From back of the houses, we hear some mother calling her son, the voice edgy on the last syllable, getting frantic. Probably Miz Baker, whose six-foot twelve-year-old got a way of scooting up and down that resembles too much the actions of a runaway bandit to the pigs around here. Mainly, he got the outlaw hue, and running too? Shit, Miz Baker stay frantic.

You don't logic, man. You sheer don't logic.

But she would not break her discipline to comfort herself in a shallow way. Would no more break discipline with her Self than she would her covenant with God.

There is no American cinema; there are American cinemas.

Telling the truth in a country where there are no truth-speaking traditions that are respected is extremely hard.

Maybe Ã¢â'¬Â¦ an old story passed down on Mai's maternal side huddled together in the internment camps of '42, keeping themselves alive with the stories. But keeping separate even then, even there, the threads of the Japanese, Chinese, Filipino elders. Stories keeping the people in the camps alive while the bill in Congress to sterilize the women of the camps got voted down by one vote, one vote. And then the silence. A whole generation silent

And she wanted to answer Ruby, wanted to say something intelligible and calm and hip and funny so the work could take precedence again. But the words got caught in the grind of her back teeth as she shred silk and canvas and paper and hair. The rip and shriek of silk prying her teeth apart. And it all came out a growling.

Silence. Stillness. To give her soul a chance to attend its own affairs at its own level.

As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible.

Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so's you're sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you're well.

Writing is one of the ways I participate in transformation.

M)aybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.

Write a lot and hit the streets. A writer who doesn't keep up with what's out there ain't gonna be out there.

The dream is real, my friends. The failure to make it work is the unreality.

Words are to be taken seriously. I try to take seriously acts of language. Words set things in motion. I've seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges. I've felt them doing it. Words conjure. I try not to be careless about what I utter, write, sing. I'm careful about what I give voice to.

Not all speed is movement.

For people sometimes believed that it was safer to live with complaints, was necessary to cooperate with grief, was all right to become an accomplice in self-ambush... Take heart to flat out decide to be well and stride into the future sane and whole.

We stand there with this big smile of respect between us. It's about as real a smile as girls can do for each other, considering we don't practice real smiling every day, you know, cause maybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.

got to give it all up, the pain, the hurt, the anger and make room for lovely things to rush in and fill you full.

Words are to be taken seriously. I try to take seriously acts of language. Words set things in motion.

If your house ain't in order, you ain't in order. It is so much easier to be out there than in here.

Writing is a legitimate way, an important way, to participate in the empowerment of the community that names me.