Top 35 Pearl Cleage Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music. Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices.”

— Pearl Cleage

2. “Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.”

— Pearl Cleage

3. “We danced too wild, and we sang too long, and we hugged too hard, and we kissed too sweet, and howled just as loud as we wanted to howl, because by now we were all old enough to know that what looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.”

— Pearl Cleage

4. “Domestic violence is the front line of the war against women.”

— Pearl Cleage

5. “If you don’t annoy your big sister for no good reason from time to time, she thinks you don’t love her anymore.”

— Pearl Cleage

6. “You can’t save a person who doesn’t want to be saved. It was like Mr. Eddie always told the new gardeners: Everybody’s got to kill their own snakes.”

— Pearl Cleage

7. “What looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.”

— Pearl Cleage

8. “Feminism is to sexism what black nationalism is to racism; the most rational response to the problem.”

— Pearl Cleage

9. “Sometimes you have to show them what they want to see in order to get them to show you who they really are.”

— Pearl Cleage

10. “Sisterhood is a funny thing. It’s easy to recognize, but hard to define.”

— Pearl Cleage

11. “Loneliness is random; solitude is ritual.”

— Pearl Cleage

12. “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

13. “I think the black community is no different from any other community. We need to take responsibility for how we live together. We need to be personally responsible for keeping our streets clean, our schools safe, and our houses peaceful.”

— Pearl Cleage

14. “Because a lie can never make you stronger, no matter how many times you tell it.”

— Pearl Cleage

15. “Any time your life is at stake and you can’t find even one woman to come forward and say, ‘This is a good man,’ your problem isn’t what kind of woman THEY are. Your problem is what kind of men YOU are.”

— Pearl Cleage

16. “Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes.”

— Pearl Cleage

17. “Buying flowers is not just a way to bring home beauty. It’s an expression of confidence that better days are coming. It’s a defiant finger in the face of those naysayers who would have you believe your fortunes will never improve.”

— Pearl Cleage

18. “I think all negotiations should take place at a round table and everybody should have to rotate counterclockwise once an hour so that even the perception of head of the table, or foot, are ritually obliterated.”

— Pearl Cleage

19. “I’ve never been to Paris. I don’t like to fly!”

— Pearl Cleage

20. “You can only get your heart broke so many times before you forget how to offer it up at all.”

— Pearl Cleage

21. “Vera Stark is a fabulous force of nature.”

— Pearl Cleage

22. “When you’re young, there’s a whole lot of stuff you say you’ll never do. Once you get a little older, the list tends to get shorter.”

— Pearl Cleage

23. “But it is the fear, not the writing that defeats me. Everything is not a masterpiece.”

— Pearl Cleage

24. “Putting words on paper regularly is part of the necessary discipline of writing. A journal is a great way to do that.”

— Pearl Cleage

25. “As African-Americans, we often spend our time and energy blaming other people for the problems we see around us.”

— Pearl Cleage

26. “I really love writing comedy. Writing romantic comedy is even nicer because you get to write about how insane we all act when we’re falling in love.”

— Pearl Cleage

27. “You know the Buddhists believe that sometimes when everything is in turmoil, it’s because something wonderful is ready to be born and that thing is distracting you so it can have some privacy during the birthing process.”

— Pearl Cleage

28. “If you have to take a stand, home’s the best place to do it,” he said, and his voice was as soothing as the music.”

— Pearl Cleage

29. “Both men knew the only thing more valuable than a favor well done was a secret well kept. This had the potential to be both.”

— Pearl Cleage

30. “This society gives points for pregnancy and for birthing, but after that, we isolate the mother and the baby and expect them to function the best way they can. It is very anti-family, anti-woman, anti-person!”

— Pearl Cleage

31. “Defiance means you got somebody with power over you.”

— Pearl Cleage

32. “Liberation is a constant struggle. And this is a new year.”

— Pearl Cleage

33. “It is so important to be conscious even when it makes you realize how much negative stuff you have enjoyed all your life until you realized it was all anti you.”

— Pearl Cleage

34. “I know once you repent, Jesus himself isn’t big on punishment, but according to all the Old Testament stories, I ever heard, his was not above it.”

— Pearl Cleage

35. “You know I love Brother Buddha, but until he reincarnates as a black man in America, I think we better go with what we know.” Joyce.”

— Pearl Cleage

36. “We weren’t looking for perfection. We were looking for the possibility of perfection, and that possibility is always most beautifully present in the faces of our children and then, if we are very lucky, in the faces of our grandchildren.”

— Pearl Cleage

37. “Grown people never ask you what they should do until they’ve already decided for themselves.”

— Pearl Cleage