Mary Ruefle Quotes

• Once I witnessed a windstorm so severe two 100-year-old trees were uprooted on the spot. The next day, walking among the wreckage, I found the friable nests of birds, completely intact and unharmed on the ground. That the featherweight survive the massive, that this reversal of fortune takes place among us — that is what haunts me. I don’t know what it means.

  Mary Ruefle

  Mean, Years, Two

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.206, Wave Books

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• In the end I would rather wonder than know

  Mary Ruefle

  Wonder, Ends, Knows

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.101, Wave Books

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• A poem is a finished work of the mind, it is not the work of a finished mind.

  Mary Ruefle

  Mind, Finished Work, Finished

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.222, Wave Books

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• We are all one question, and the best answer seems to be love—a connection between things.

  Mary Ruefle

  Connections, Answers, Seems

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.197, Wave Books

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• In our marginal existence, what else is there but this voice within us, this great weirdness we are always leaning forward to listen to?

  Mary Ruefle

  Voice, Weirdness, Existence

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• In one sense, reading is a great waste of time. In another sense, it is a great extension of time, a way for one person to live a thousand and one lives in a single lifespan, to watch the great impersonal universe at work again and again That is why I read: I want everything to be okay. That’s why I read when I was a lonely kid and that’s why I read now that I’m a scared adult.

  Mary Ruefle

  Lonely, Reading, Kids

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• The origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the secret and keep it.

  Mary Ruefle

  Secret, Obscurity, Protect

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.82, Wave Books

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• in the beginning William Shakespeare was a baby, and knew absolutely nothing. He couldn't even speak.

  Mary Ruefle

  Baby, Speak, Absolutely Nothing

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.249, Wave Books

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• I am convinced that the first lyric poem was written at night, and that the moon was witness to the event and that the event was witness to the moon. For me, the moon has always been the very embodiment of lyric poetry.

  Mary Ruefle

  Night, Moon, Lyric Poetry

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.12, Wave Books

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• I'm lucky enough to occasionally be able to do something I love - write poems - and unlucky enough that what I love confuses and overwhelms me.

  Mary Ruefle

  Writing, Lucky, Able

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.69, Wave Books

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• Now I will give you a piece of advice. I will tell you something that I absolutely believe you should do, and if you do not do it you will never be a witer. It is a certain truth. When your pencil is dull, sharpen it. And when your pencil is sharp, use it until it is dull again.

  Mary Ruefle

  Believe, Giving, Advice

  "Madness, Rack, and Honey". Book by Mary Ruefle, therumpus.net. August 7, 2012.

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• Words have a love for each other, a desire that culminates in poetry.

  Mary Ruefle

  Desire

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.92, Wave Books

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• In life, the number of beginnings is exactly equal to the number of endings ... In poetry, the number of beginnings so far exceeds the number of endings that we cannot even conceive of it.

  Mary Ruefle

  Numbers, Equal, Exceed

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.1, Wave Books

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• If you have any idea for a poem, an exact grid of intent, you are on the wrong path, a dead-end alley, at the top of a cliff you haven't even climbed. This is a lesson that can only be learned by trial and error.

  Mary Ruefle

  Errors, Ideas, Path

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• I have become an orchid
  washed in on the salt white beach.
  Memory,
  what can I make of it now
  that might please you-
  this life, already wasted
  and still strewn with miracles?

  Mary Ruefle

  Beach, Memories, Orchids

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• [On filling out a grant application:] I seek an extended period of time, free from all distractions, so that I might be free to be distracted.

  Mary Ruefle

  Time, Might, Distraction

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.137, Wave Books

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• Although all poets aspire to be birds, no bird aspires to be a poet.

  Mary Ruefle

  Bird, Poet, Aspire

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• the wasting of time is the most personal, most private, most intimate form of conversation with oneself, as well as with another.

  Mary Ruefle

  Time, Leisure, Intimate

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.126, Wave Books

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• There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. Writers know that. I have never met a writer who does not crave to be alone. We have to be alone to do what we do.

  Mary Ruefle

  Lonely, Differences, Doe

  "The Life-Long Sentence". Interview with with Tony Leuzzi, brooklynrail.org. July 15, 2014.

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• The words secret and sacred are siblings.

  Mary Ruefle

  Sibling, Secret, Sacred

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• It is the first experience you ever had of reading a decent poem: 'Oh, somebody else is lonely, too!

  Mary Ruefle

  Lonely, Reading, Firsts

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.95, Wave Books

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• Art has always been aware of itself as art.

  Mary Ruefle

  Art

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.68, Wave Books

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• People, the people we really love, where did they come from? What did we do to deserve them?

  Mary Ruefle

  People, Deserve

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.97, Wave Books

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• Metaphor is not, and never has been, a mere literary term. It is an event.

  Mary Ruefle

  Events, Metaphor, Term

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.131, Wave Books

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• There is a world which poets cannot seem to enter. It is the world everybody else lives in. And the only thing poets seem to have in common is their yearning to enter this world.

  Mary Ruefle

  World, Common, Poet

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