Linda Pastan Quotes

Poetry is not a code to be broken but a way of seeing with the eyes shut.

I made a list of things I have to remember and a list of things I want to forget, but I see they are the same list.

I am tired of the litany of months, September October I am tired of the way the seasons keep changing, mimicking the seasons of the flesh which are real and finite.

I have dreamed of our bed as if it were a shore where we would be washed up, not this striped mattress we must cover with sheets. [from "After an Absence"]

What we want is never simple.

Evil is simply a grammatical error: a failure to leap the precipice between "he" and "I.

Grief is a circular staircase.

I regret the way pain has taught me nothing.

Spring is the shortest season.

To be the other womanis to be a seasonthat is always about to end, when the air is floweredwith jasmine and peach, and the weather day after dayis flawless, and the forecastis hurricane.