164 Quotes by Rita Dove

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.