"At the time I was growing up,..." - Quote by Mary Oliver

“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.”

“A fact: one picks it up and reads it, and puts it down, and there is an end to it. But an idea! That one may pick up, and reflect upon, and oppose, and expand, and so pass a delightful afternoon altogether.”

“A poet's interest in craft never fades, of course.”

“Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.”

“Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.”

“The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real.”

“Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.”

“Lenny Bruce genius was the unique ability to investigate hypocrisy and expose social inequities in a street rap that was really a form of poetry.”

“The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely.”