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For years, I had heard about the lack of interest in literature in the U.S. and I had complained about the lack of respect artists got here. In my heart, I failed to understand how people could fail to be moved by art.

Rita Dove

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Rita Dove
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 28
Essayist
Poet
Professor
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Rita Frances Dove
Heart
Moved
Years
Failing
People
Respect
Heard
Complained
Literature
Failed
Interest
Lack
Understand
Fail
Art
Artists

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Don't be so fast, you're all you've got.
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When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.
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If I begin writing a poem that means I'm intrigued in some way by whatever it's about and that if I'm not trying to find something new and pushing the envelope in the poem I can't expect my reader to be particularly excited about it either.
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I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
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I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.
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Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
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The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.
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I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.
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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.
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A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.
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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.
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Can it be that even as one grows to fit the space one lives in, one cannot grow until there's space to grow?
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I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
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I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.
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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.
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If you can't be free, be a mystery.
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