164 Quotes by Rita Dove

What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg’s importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world!

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

As an African-American, as a woman, I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down, never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important.

The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now.

I'm a night person. My best times are midnight to six, actually.

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.

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.

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.

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