Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Rita Dove
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 28
Essayist
Poet
Professor
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Rita Frances Dove
Grow
Grows
Space
Lives
Cannot
Even
Fit
More quotes by Rita Dove
At the very beginning when I begin writing a poem I try not to think of the audience or anyone at all except for trying to get at the very center of what is driving that poem. In a way it's like analyzing myself.
Rita Dove
If you can't be free, be a mystery.
Rita Dove
Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.
Rita Dove
A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.
Rita Dove
You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can't imagine something that has never existed before, it's impossible.
Rita Dove
One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet, that there are those who've gone before and those who will come, and that there is a community of spirits.
Rita Dove
The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now
Rita Dove
Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.
Rita Dove
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
Rita Dove
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
Rita Dove
I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!
Rita Dove
When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.
Rita Dove
I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.
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 was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
Rita Dove
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
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
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.
Rita Dove
The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
Rita Dove
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
