19 Quotes by Tony Hoagland

Outside the youth center, between the liquor storeand the police station,a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;overflowing with blossomfoam,like a sudsy mug of beer;like a bride ripping off her clothes,dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.It’s been doing that all week:making beauty,and throwing it away,and making more.

No matter how you feel you have to actlike you are very popular with yourself;very relaxed and purposefulvery unconfusedand notlike you are walking through the sunshinesingingin chains.

the glory of the protagonist is always paid for by a lot of secondary characters

The dark ending does not cancel out the brightness of the middle.Your day of greatest joy cannot be dimmed by any shame.

Maybe every talk about poetry is a defense of poetry...

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle. What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel. What I thought was an injustice turned out to be a color of the sky.

We would give anything for what we have.

Often we ask ourselves to make absolute sense out of what just happens, and in this way, what we are practicing is suffering, which everybody practices, but strangely few of us grow graceful in.

And I am too knowledgeable now to hurt people imprecisely.