Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Rita Dove
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 28
Essayist
Poet
Professor
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Rita Frances Dove
Person
Loved
Book
Wasn
Always
Written
Read
Away
Dream
Thought
Persons

More quotes by Rita Dove

Image
People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable.
Rita Dove
Image
What writing does is to reveal.
Rita Dove
Image
I change jobs like drinking water ... And as I grow accustomed to the new flavor of a drink I regard as delicious, yes, vital, something fades, life balks. So I break camp I shed skins.
Rita Dove
Image
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
Rita Dove
Image
Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
Rita Dove
Image
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
Image
I'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.
Rita Dove
Image
As an African-American, as a woman I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important.
Rita Dove
Image
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.
Rita Dove
Image
Libraries are where it all begins.
Rita Dove
Image
The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
Rita Dove
Image
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
Image
If only the sun-drenched celebrities are being noticed and worshiped, then our children are going to have a tough time seeing the value in the shadows, where the thinkers, probers and scientists are keeping society together.
Rita Dove
Image
We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.
Rita Dove
Image
I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
Rita Dove
Image
Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.
Rita Dove
Image
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
Rita Dove
Image
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
Image
My inspiration comes from everywhere, just walking down the street and I never know where it's going to come from, so I keep a notebook with me at all times and the only criteria for anything making it into that notebook is if it stops me in my tracks for even an instant, if it catches my eye or my ear and I just write it down.
Rita Dove
Image
Don't be so fast, you're all you've got.
Rita Dove