Mark Strand quotes

The future is always beginning now. (Mark Strand)
Each moment is a place you've never been. View quote
Mark Strand
But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving. View quote
Mark Strand
And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem. View quote
Mark Strand
There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest. View quote
Mark Strand
A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be. View quote
Mark Strand
We are reading the story of our lives As though we were in it As though we had written it. View quote
Mark Strand
Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler. View quote
Mark Strand
A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art. View quote
Mark Strand
For some of us, the less said about the way we do things the better. View quote
Mark Strand
Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented. (Mark Strand)
Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb. View quote
Mark Strand
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. View quote
Mark Strand
We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole. View quote
Mark Strand
These wrinkles are nothing These gray hairs are nothing, This stomach which sags with old food, these bruised and swollen ankles, my darkening brain, they are nothing. I am the same boy my mother used to kiss. View quote
Mark Strand
Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep. View quote
Mark Strand
It hardly seems worthwhile to point out the shortsightedness of those practitioners who would have us believe that the form of the poem is merely its shape. View quote
Mark Strand
I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me. View quote
Mark Strand
And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written. View quote
Mark Strand
From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose. View quote
Mark Strand
Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments. (Mark Strand)
I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony. View quote
Mark Strand
I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes. View quote
Mark Strand
I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful. View quote
Mark Strand
I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality. View quote
Mark Strand