Rita Dove Quotes: top 66 famous quotes about Rita Dove

Rita Dove Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Rita Dove quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

Since she's discovered
men would rather drown
than nibble,
she does just
fine. — Rita Dove

It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing. — Rita Dove

I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more. — Rita Dove

My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets. — Rita Dove

I write short stories, and I wrote a play. — Rita Dove

By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other. — Rita Dove

Our situation is intolerable, but what's worse
is to sit here and do nothing. — Rita Dove

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world? — Rita Dove

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is. — Rita Dove

When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings. — Rita Dove

I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing. — 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. — Rita Dove

I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them. — 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. — 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. — Rita Dove

I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers. — Rita Dove

I loved to read, but I always thought that the dream was too far away. The person who had written the book was a god, it wasn't a person. — Rita Dove

I was pirouette and flourish,
I was filigree and flame.
How could I count my blessings
when I didn't know their names? — Rita Dove

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding. — Rita Dove

Can it be that even as one grows to fit the space one lives in, one cannot grow until there's space to grow? — Rita Dove

To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet. — Rita Dove

Crassly put: When I write, I am trying not to bore myself and my readers. — Rita Dove

I'm a night person. My best times are midnight to six, actually. — Rita Dove

The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with. — Rita Dove

When I was young, I was older than I am today. — 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. — Rita Dove

I make a discovery in a poem as I write it. — Rita Dove

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit. — Rita Dove

I think if you put something in a file that says "war poems" or "love poems" that you already restrict the way in which the poem might move. — Rita Dove

Sometimes
a word is found so right it trembles
at the slightest explanation. — Rita Dove

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it. — Rita Dove

If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer. — Rita Dove

If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level. — Rita Dove

If you cannot be free, be a mystery. — Rita Dove

Poetry connects you to yourself, to the self that doesn't know how to talk or negotiate. — Rita Dove

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on. — 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. — Rita Dove

Against Self-Pity
It gets you nowhere but deeper into
your own shit
pure misery a luxury
one never learns to enjoy. — Rita Dove

If you can't be free, be a mystery. — Rita Dove

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something. — Rita Dove

Listen how they say your name. If they can't say that right, there's no way they're going to know how to treat you proper, neither. — Rita Dove

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure. — Rita Dove

For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard. — Rita Dove

I think that when a poem can move readers across generations and across its specific class or race then it becomes truly classic. — Rita Dove

Libraries are where it all begins. — Rita Dove

Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree. — Rita Dove

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate. — Rita Dove

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor. — Rita Dove

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned. — Rita Dove

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world. — Rita Dove

I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem. — Rita Dove

What writing does is to reveal. — Rita Dove

Women invented misery,
but we don't understand it. — 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. — Rita Dove

I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it. — Rita Dove

Don't be so fast, you're all you've got. — Rita Dove

I tell you, if you feel strange,
strange things will happen to you:
Fallen peacocks on library shelves — Rita Dove

Creative writing and literacy go hand and hand. — Rita Dove

It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded. — Rita Dove

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step. — Rita Dove

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints. — Rita Dove

If fucking were graceful,desire an alibi. — Rita Dove

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more. — 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

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. — Rita Dove

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive. — Rita Dove