Rita Dove Quotes

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

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.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.

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.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.

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.

Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree.

Listen how they say your name. If they can't say that right, there's no way they're going to know how to treat you proper, neither.

When I was young, I was older than I am today.

My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.

Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something

If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.

Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.

Libraries are where it all begins.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

My childhood library was small enough not to be intimidating. And yet I felt the whole world was contained in those two rooms. I could walk any aisle and smell wisdom.

When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.

Creative writing and literacy go hand and hand.

In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things

The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.

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.

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.

I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things.

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.

If you can't be free, be a mystery.

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.

I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?

By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other.

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world?

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.

For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.

It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing

My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.

It makes me furious to hear haters of all skin colors - especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists - deride other people because of their different beliefs and lifestyles.

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.

It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded.

I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry

I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.

If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer

I wish someone had told me that my stories are really mine to tell. In other words, anything that I think is important or that has moved me has the ability to move somebody else.

I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers.