Rita Dove quotes

If you can't be free, be a mystery. (Rita Dove)
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard. View quote
Rita Dove
I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age. View quote
Rita Dove
I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day. View quote
Rita Dove
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints. View quote
Rita Dove
Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. View quote
Rita Dove
When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings. View quote
Rita Dove
I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on. View quote
Rita Dove
If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level. View quote
Rita Dove
My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends. View quote
Rita Dove
Libraries are where it all begins. (Rita Dove)
In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things. View quote
Rita Dove
Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit. View quote
Rita Dove
I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about! View quote
Rita Dove
What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world! View quote
Rita Dove
I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them. View quote
Rita Dove
Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature. View quote
Rita Dove
I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry. View quote
Rita Dove
I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things. View quote
Rita Dove
All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself. View quote
Rita Dove
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet. (Rita Dove)
There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry. View quote
Rita Dove
Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early. View quote
Rita Dove
To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you. View quote
Rita Dove
I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer. View quote
Rita Dove