Here are 25 Black inspirational quotes. I’ve gathered these quotes from Black women writers to give you a boost of writing inspiration.
Some of these quotes are from books and others are from interviews with these talented authors. I hope they inspire you to keep writing.
1
“I write for young girls of color, for girls who don’t even exist yet, so that there is something there for them when they arrive. I can only change how they live, not how they think.” –Ntozake Shange
2
“Writing can be a lifeline, especially when your existence has been denied, especially when you have been left on the margins, especially when your life and process of growth have been subjected to attempts at strangulation.” ― Micere Githae Mugo
3
“If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” –Toni Morrison
4
“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ― Octavia E. Butler
5
“Dreams are lovely but they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.” —Shonda Rhimes
6
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you
finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.” ― Octavia E. Butler“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” —Coretta Scott King
7
“Many times, what people call ‘writer’s block’ is the confusion that happens when a writer has a great idea, but their writing skill is not up to the task of putting that idea down on paper. I think that learning the craft of writing is critical.” –Pearl Cleage
8
“As black women, we’re always given these seemingly devastating experiences—experiences that could absolutely break us. But what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly. What we do as black women is take the worst situations and create from that point.” —Viola Davis
9
“No black woman writer in this culture can write “too much.” Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’…No woman has ever written enough.” – Bell Hooks
10
“I don’t want to be limited or ghettoized in any way.” –Sista Soulja
11
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.” –Maya Angelou
12
Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.” ―Alice Walker
13
“Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.” ― June Jordan
14
“People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry, and that’s a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.” –Lucille Clifton
15
“People who want to write either do it or they don’t. At last I began to say that my most important talent – or habit – was persistence. Without it, I would have given up writing long before I finished my first novel. It’s amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up.” ― Octavia E. Butler
16
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” -Angela Davis 
17
“Writers don’t write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don’t. …If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.” ― Nikki Giovanni
18
“Putting words on paper regularly is part of the necessary discipline of writing.” -Pearl Cleage
19
“Shakespeare wrote about love. I write about love. Shakespeare wrote about gang warfare, family feuds and revenge. I write about all the same things.” -Sister Souljah
20
“A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.” – Gwendolyn Brooks
21
“I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write
what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.” –Alice Walker
22
“Challenging power structures from the inside, working the cracks within the system, however, requires learning to speak multiple languages of power convincingly.” – Patricia Hill Collins
23
Everything I’ve ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.” – Toni Morrison
24
“Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.” ― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
25
“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.” -Toni Morrison
