Quote

Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.

Sarah Kay

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sarah Kay
Age: 28 †
Born: 1971
Born: February 3
Died: 1999
Died: February 20
Author
Educator
Playwright
Writer
Brentwood
Essex
Sarah Marie Kane
Necessary
Craft
Artist
Crafts
Hard
Skill
Important
Experienced
Work
Separate
Rewriting
Careful
Beginners
Artists
Artistry
Skills
Editing

More quotes by Sarah Kay

Image
It does not matter how strong your gravity is, we were always meant to fly.
Sarah Kay
Image
But in Hiroshima, some people were wiped clean away, leaving only a wristwatch or a diary page. So no matter that I have inhibitions to fill all my pockets, I keep trying, hoping that one day I'll write a poem I can be proud to let sit in a museum exhibit as the only proof I existed.
Sarah Kay
Image
My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.
Sarah Kay
Image
No matter your wreckage. There will be someone to find you beautiful, despite the cruddy metal. Your ruin is not to be hidden behind paint and canvas. Let them see the cracks. Someone will come to sing into these empty spaces.
Sarah Kay
Image
There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.
Sarah Kay
Image
You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.
Sarah Kay
Image
I don't think I ever had a morning where I woke up and said I'm going to be a professional poet. I know I've always loved poetry, I've always loved writing poetry and I've always loved sharing poetry. I've also always known that I wanted that to somehow be a very large part of my life and I'm very fortunate that it's such a large part of my life.
Sarah Kay
Image
Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.
Sarah Kay
Image
Sometimes I am puzzling over something for months and months and the poem gets created in small bursts and rewritten a hundred times, and chopped up and put back together, etc. Occasionally, though rarely, a poem just plops out of my head fully-formed. But always it is a blueprint of what my brain is trying to navigate at that moment.
Sarah Kay
Image
I want [my daughter] to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind.
Sarah Kay
Image
Not all poetry wants to be storytelling. And not all storytelling wants to be poetry. But great storytellers and great poets share something in common: They had something to say, and did.
Sarah Kay
Image
I want to welcome folks to poetry, especially those who may have previously felt unwelcome I want to celebrate everyone who is trying to make sense of this world through poetry the way I try to.
Sarah Kay
Image
Every moment I choose to write about is one I have deemed important enough to dwell inside of and share with others. I am holding this moment up to the light and saying, Wow, will you look at that?
Sarah Kay
Image
When words become a poem, it makes sense to me, but I don't know how to explain to someone why the words are the way they are. It's just the logic of the poem to me.
Sarah Kay
Image
One thing that I believe is that every time I write something, I am taking the time to celebrate. Even if I am writing a sad story or an angry poem, I am still giving those stories my time and attention.
Sarah Kay
Image
I write poetry to figure things out. Any time I’m trying to wrap my head around something, poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me.
Sarah Kay
Image
You are not made of metaphors, Not apologies, not excuses.
Sarah Kay
Image
Ever hear that expression, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times? That's what high school was like for me. Both of those - all the time.
Sarah Kay
Image
Part of what I try to do in schools is take poetry off of a pedestal and make it a little more accessible and approachable.
Sarah Kay
Image
If I should have a daughter… I’m gonna paint the solar system on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say ‘oh I know that like the back of my hand.
Sarah Kay