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" I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about! "

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" I loved to read, but I always thought that the dream was too far away. The person who had written the book was a god, it wasn't a person. "

Rita Dove

God

Thought

Loved

" It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded. "

" I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them. "

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

" 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. "

" Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature. "

" I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more. "

" I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels. "

Rita Dove

Black And White

People

" Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet. "

" Libraries are where it all begins. "

" There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry. "

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

" 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. "

" My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets. "

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

" I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers. "

" 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. "

" To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you. "

" Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

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

" People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable. "

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

Rita Dove

Poetry

Seen

" I think one of the things that people tend to forget is that poets do write out of life. It isn't some set piece that then gets put up on the shelf, but that the impetus, the real instigation for poetry is everything that's happening around us. "

Rita Dove

Forget

Think

" 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. "

" It makes me furious to hear haters of all skin colors - especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists - deride other people because of their different beliefs and lifestyles. "

" What writing does is to reveal. "

" Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor. "