Ellen Bass Quotes

Allow yourself to release the emotions you have struggled all your life to contain.

There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one.That is spirituality.

There is a comfort in knowing that you don’t have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your power to heal.

What would people look like if we could see them as they are, soaked in honey, stung and swollen, reckless, pinned against time?

It's impossible to feel good about yourself if you are doing things that you aren't proud of. . . . It's essential that you . . . [do] things you can respect and admire.

I live in Santa Cruz. I moved here in 1974 and couldn't leave.

Everyone has the right to tell the truth about her own life.

Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again.

So much inspires me. People living their lives with courage, beauty of all kinds, nature in all its aspects, people I love and people I hardly know, and, of course, other poets.

Poetry is the most intimate of all writing. I want to speak first from me to myself and then from me to you.

If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple as well.

Visualizing how you want to be is [an] effective way to move toward your goal.

I think many people love poetry who don't know they love it. People are sometimes afraid of poetry, or they've been introduced to poetry that doesn't speak to them.

Garrison Keillor read several of my poems on 'The Writer's Almanac' and I've heard from listeners nationally and internationally. That's one of the great gifts of email.

Your wallet will be stolen, you'll get fat, slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel and crack your hip.

No matter how many vitamins you take, how much Pilates, you'll lose your keys, your hair and your memory.

I wanted to be a writer since I was in high school, but I never thought it was possible.

the dolphins stitch sky to sea.

If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care.But when Newton’s applefell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, felltoward the apple as well.