By Amanda Gorman quotes is an American poet and activist from Los Angeles, California.
In 2021, Gorman was appointed as the inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, and she had the honor of reading a poem at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. The poem she penned and recited, titled ‘The Hill We Climb,’ conveyed a powerful message of hope, unity, togetherness, and collaboration.
Gorman’s verses and sayings embody a feeling of fortitude, bravery, and compassion even when confronted with challenges. She stands as a motivating figure for youth across the globe and persistently leverages her influence to champion social justice. Below, you’ll find a selection of her uplifting words, and we look forward to hearing more from her as she continues to inspire.
Amanda Gorman Famous Quotes
Amanda Gorman
- Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.
2. I have to interweave my poetry with purpose. For me, that purpose is to help people, and to shed a light on issues that have far too long been in the darkness.
Amanda Gorman
3. There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Amanda Gorman, inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb
4. When day comes, we ask ourselves:
Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
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.
5. All of us bring light to exciting solutions never tried before
Amanda Gorman, Earthrise
For it is our hope that implores us, at our uncompromising core,
To keep rising up for an earth more than worth fighting for.
6. We lay down our arms
Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
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
7. For it’s our grief that gives us our gratitude,
Amanda Gorman
Shows us how to find hope, if we ever lose it.
So ensure that this ache wasn’t endured in vain:
Do not ignore the pain. Give it purpose. Use it.
8. We do not hope for no reason.
Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
Hope is the reason for itself.
9. The great responsibility I feel is to get people to put that power and that hope in themselves.
Amanda Gorman, to TIME
10. Change is made of choices,
Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
and choices are made of character.
11. I can hear change humming
Amanda Gorman, Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem
In its loudest, proudest song.
I don’t fear change coming,
And so I sing along.
12. Hear me as a woman
Amanda Gorman, Won’t You Be My Sister
Have me as your sister
On purpled battlefield breaking day,
So I might say our victory is just beginning,
See me as change,
Say I am movement,
That I am the year
And I am the era
Of the women.
13. You don’t have to be a poet, you don’t have to be a politician or be in the White House to make an impact with your words. We all have this capacity to find solutions for the future.
Amanda Gorman
14. That is the promised glade,
Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country
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.
15. We are the good news that we have been looking for,
Amanda Gorman, in the Some Good News Graduation episode
Demonstrating that every dusk holds a dawn disguised within it.
Today we don’t burst into a new world.
We begin it.
16. The only way to correctly predict
Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
The future is to pave it,
Is to brave it.
17. Know what we’ve fought
Amanda Gorman, New Day’s Lyric
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.
18. For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
Amanda Gorman
19. Maybe everything hurts,
Amanda Gorman, Hymn for the Hurting
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.
20. May we not just grieve, but give. May we not just ache, but act.
Amanda Gorman, Hymn for the Hurting
21. Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.
Amanda Gorman
22. There is no such thing as gentle war.
Amanda Gorman
There is no peace
That can’t be flung aside.
Our only enemy is that which would
Make us enemies to each other.
23. The single greatest challenge of our era is to transform without wrath, war, or wariness.
Amanda Gorman
24. Would we crave peace
Amanda Gorman
If we knew what it was.
25. While we might feel small, separate, and all alone, our people have never been more tightly tethered.
Amanda Gorman, The Miracle of Morning, Call Us What We Carry
The question’s not if we will weather this unknown, but how we will weather the unknown together.
26. I think sometimes our terror is a great kind of flag to symbolize a type of love or greatness. The fact that I was so afraid, that I knew there was a reason that I was tapping into every well of courage that I had to show up into that space. Because the space needed to be revisited; that space needed to be revamped and it needed to be reconciled with. And I thought one of the few and also most fervent ways we have to do that is with poems.
Amanda Gorman, in conversation with Clint Smith for The Atlantic, about the experience of delivering a poem at the Capitol just weeks after the violent uprising
27. The type of leadership that I like to participate in really leans into my femininity. Things like empathy, compassion, listening, tenderness, sharing power — you risk being called ‘too emotional,’ but I like to lean into those characteristics because we need to see more of that in the world.
Amanda Gorman, to TIME
28. It’s said that ignorance is bliss.
Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
Ignorance is this: a vine that
sneaks up a tree, killing not by
poison, but by blocking out its
light.
29. 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. Tell me what is more powerful than the unerased.
Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
30. To love one another just may be the fight of our lives.
Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman Quotes
31. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.
Amanda Gorman
32. Loss is the cost of loving
Amanda Gorman
33. There is power in being robbed & still choosing to dance.
Amanda Gorman
34. If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, Then love becomes our legacy, And change, our children’s birthright.
Amanda Gorman
35. 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.
Amanda Gorman
36. Words, too, are a type of combat, for we always become what we refuse to say.
Amanda Gorman
37. Sometimes, we must call our monster out from under the bed to see he/she/it carries our face.
Amanda Gorman
38. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Amanda Gorman
39. Like a page, we are only legible when opened to one another.
Amanda Gorman
40. There is always a light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Amanda Gorman
41. The first bud of spring sings the other seeds into joining her uprising.
Amanda Gorman
42. There is no better compass than compassion.
Amanda Gorman
43. The only way to correctly predict The future is to pave it, Is to brave it.
Amanda Gorman
44. Shall this leave us bitter? Or better? Grieve. Then choose.
Amanda Gorman
45. Change is made of choices, & choices are made of character.
Amanda Gorman
46. Perhaps pain is like a name, made to sing just for you.
Amanda Gorman
47. In this truth, in this faith, we trust. For while we have our eyes on the future, History has its eyes on us.
Amanda Gorman
48. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not easy for us to lie. Even the body has tells, even our blood runs toward truth.
Amanda Gorman
49. Only when we’re drowning do we understand how fierce our feet can kick.
Amanda Gorman
50. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed A nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
Amanda Gorman
51. To tell the truth, then, is to risk being remembered by its fiction.
Amanda Gorman
52.Always remember that What happened to us Happened through us.
Amanda Gorman
53. Take a knee to make a stand.
Amanda Gorman
54. Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.
Amanda Gorman
55. The norms and notions of what “just is’ isn’t always “justice”.
Amanda Gorman
56. Poke the scar until it speaks. This is how every memory starts.
Amanda Gorman
57. Some days, we just need a place Where we can bleed in peace.
Amanda Gorman
58. Our scars are the brightest Parts of us.
Amanda Gorman
59. It isn’t knowing, but remembering, that makes us create.
Amanda Gorman
60. To be kept to the edges of existence is the inheritance of the marginalized.
Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman Short Quotes
61. We write Because you might listen.
Amanda Gorman
62. We are desperate to flatten the curve. Oh, how we miss curving into each other.
Amanda Gorman
63. Since the world is round, There is no way to walk away From each other, for even then We are coming back together.
Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman Inspirational Quotes
Explore the profound wisdom and inspiration of Amanda Gorman through her unforgettable quotes. A gifted poet and advocate, Gorman’s words radiate with themes of resilience, unity, and progress. Her eloquent expressions are a guiding light, igniting hope and encouraging positive change. With each quote, she invites us to be catalysts for meaningful transformation.
64. This is a long, long, faraway goal, but 2036, I am running for office to be president of the United States
Amanda Gorman
65. If we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and changes our children’s birthright.
Amanda Gorman
66. One of the most rewarding moments of my career is when I’m speaking to a child who tells me they have the same speech impediment that I had to overcome and that they’re going to keep writing or sharing their voice after hearing my story.
Amanda Gorman
67. Poetry, and art in general, means showing up with your best self. And whoever that may be, that in and of itself is beautiful. The more that we can bring our authentic selves, with hope, into the moment the more that moment will show up for us.
Amanda Gorman
68. The thing that I learned is that as much as I pull from these topics, there is always a parallel to nature in my poetry.
Amanda Gorman
69. I have to interweave my poetry with purpose. For me, that purpose is to help people, and to shed a light on issues that have far too long been in the darkness.
Amanda Gorman
70. In everything you write, write something that is brave enough to be hopeful. In everything that you write, write something that is larger than yourself.
Amanda Gorman
71. Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.
Amanda Gorman
72. Whenever I listen to songs, I rewrite them in my head.
Amanda Gorman
73. Poetry is—it’s 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. And that’s a real, I think, type of duty for the poet.
Amanda Gorman
74. Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.
Amanda Gorman
75. It’s no coincidence that at the base of the Statue of Liberty, there is a poem. Our instinct is to turn to poetry when we’re looking to communicate a spirit that is larger than ourselves.
Amanda Gorman
76. We’re living in an important moment in Black art because we’re living in an important moment in Black life.
Amanda Gorman
77. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
Amanda Gorman
78. You really have to crown yourself with the belief that what I’m about and what I’m here for is way beyond this moment.
Amanda Gorman
79. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
Amanda Gorman
80. I’m learning that ‘No’ is a complete sentence. And I am reminding myself that this isn’t a competition. It’s me following the trajectory of the life I was meant to lead.
Amanda Gorman
Gorman’s statement, “Knowledge is power. I want to contribute to changing stories so that the youth can envision themselves in literature, on platforms, and in authoritative roles,” reflects her remarkable insight. Her words serve as a wellspring of inspiration for those seeking to leave an impact on the global stage.
We trust you found these 80 quotes from this exceptional young individual enriching, and they have imbued you with the drive to pursue your aspirations. Share which quote resonated with you the most in the comments section below!
