Rita Dove Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Determination, Moments, That Moment

  47 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Life, Motivational, Time

  Interview with Jesse Kornbluth for "The Book Report", www.math.buffalo.edu. April 8, 1997.

  88 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Mean, Spirit, Be True To Yourself

  46 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Children, Matter, Should

  47 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Doors, Soul, Library

  45 Copy quote

• Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree.

  Rita Dove

  Tree

  Rita Dove (2016). “Collected Poems: 1974-2004”, p.187, W. W. Norton & Company

  38 Copy quote

• Poetry connects you to yourself, to the self that doesn't know how to talk or negotiate.

  Rita Dove

  Self, Know How, Knows

  4 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Sometimes, Found, Explanation

  Rita Dove (1989). “The Yellow House on the Corner: Poems”, Carnegie-Mellon University Press

  39 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Women, Imagination, Impossible

  37 Copy quote

• If only the sun-drenched celebrities are being noticed and worshiped, then our children are going to have a tough time seeing the value in the shadows, where the thinkers, probers and scientists are keeping society together.

  Rita Dove

  Children, Tough Times, Shadow

  49 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Thinking, Childhood, Where We Come

  61 Copy quote

• If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.

  Rita Dove

  Children, Growing Up, Heart

  36 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Names, Way, Treats

  "7 Ways To Stand Up To Racism", www.oprah.com. May 2017.

  33 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Way, Intrigued

  42 Copy quote

• Nothing is too small. Nothing is too, quote-unquote, ordinary or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry.

  Rita Dove

  Ordinary, Worthy, Insignificant

  "Rita Dove On New Anthology, Advice For Young Poets". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. January 2, 2012.

  26 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Needs, Cubes

  47 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Moving, Thinking, Wish

  Big Think Interview, bigthink.com. November 19, 2009.

  7 Copy quote

• If we’re going to solve the problems of the world, we have to learn how to talk to one another. Poetry is the language at its essence. It’s the bones and the skeleton of the language. It teaches you, if nothing else, how to choose your words.

  Rita Dove

  Skeletons, Essence, World

  27 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Mean, Opportunity, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Angel, Wings, Creation

  Rita Dove, Earl G. Ingersoll (2003). “Conversations with Rita Dove”, p.137, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  11 Copy quote

• Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

  Rita Dove

  Powerful, Reading Poetry, Language

  13 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Today, Young

  30 Copy quote

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

  Rita Dove

  Trust, Choices, Levels

  Rita Dove, Earl G. Ingersoll (2003). “Conversations with Rita Dove”, p.144, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  21 Copy quote

• Don't be so fast, you're all you've got.

  Rita Dove

  Speed

  Rita Dove (2016). “Collected Poems: 1974-2004”, p.165, W. W. Norton & Company

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Community, Gone, Definitions

  Rita Dove, Earl G. Ingersoll (2003). “Conversations with Rita Dove”, p.146, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  9 Copy quote

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