Quote

No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain.

Mark Strand

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Mark Strand
Age: 80 †
Born: 1934
Born: April 11
Died: 2014
Died: November 29
Editor
Poet
Translator
Writer
Voice
Dust
Comes
Meant
Carpets
Tell
Wind
Folds
Happens
Knew
Carpet
Long
Happen
Outer
Way
Space
Complain
Never
Lasts
Ruins
Would
Last
Complaining

More quotes by Mark Strand

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In a field I am the absence of field.That is always the case. Wherever I am, I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the space where my body has been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole.
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Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention.
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Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.
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I have been eating poetry.
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I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.
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Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.
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Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.
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In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing.
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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.
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We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.
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Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.
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Poetry is about slowing down. You sit and you read something, you read it again, and it reveals a little bit more, and things come to light you never could have predicted.
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I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.
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Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.
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If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world.
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...In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.
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I don't really think it will make much difference to me when I'm dead whether I'm read or not . . . just as whether I'm dead or not won't mean much to me when I'm dead.
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There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest.
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Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.
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From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.
Mark Strand