Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Quote”
The concept of an inner light or fire is found in every culture. It’s so important to keep fueling it, no matter what the circumstances, especially for writers. “Go within every day and find the inner strength so that the world will not blow your candle out.” ~Katherine Dunham “Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” ~ Maya Angelou
In a recent workshop, Larissa Fasthorse said she began writing plays as a way to change the world. Of course that is quixotic, but in a way, I agree. “I definitely write from a need to try, in my own two hours, to right a wrong. My little play is inconsequential in terms of whether or not we have health …
I don’t have, nor will I make, any resolutions for 2021. I actually hate resolutions, which seem pointless, especially when I know I can start doing something new at any time. And after 2020, the fact that circumstances are wildly out of my control is more obvious than ever. I do, however, keep Susan Sontag’s “resolution,” to hold in my …
A gorgeous poem by Naomi Shihab Nye: Letters swallow themselves in seconds. Notes friends tied to the doorknob, transparent scarlet paper,sizzle like moth wings,marry the air. So much of any year is flammable, lists of vegetables, partial poems. Orange swirling flame of days, so little is a stone. Where there was something and suddenly isn’t, an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space. I begin again with the …
How I love this poem by Carol Ann Duffy, former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Mrs. Midas It was late September. I’d just poured a glass of wine, begunto unwind, while the vegetables cooked. The kitchenfilled with the smell of itself, relaxed, its steamy breathgently blanching the windows. So I opened one,then with my fingers wiped the other’s glass …
This little story by Hans Christian Anderson, “The Fir-Tree,” holds a valuable lesson. Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir-tree. The place he had was a very good one; the sun shone on him; as to fresh air, there was enough of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as firs. But the little …
Artist Lorna Simpson discussing her use of text with photographs: “I started to concentrate more upon how the viewer looks at photographs… I would insert my own text or my own specific reading of the image to give the viewer something they might not interpret or surmise, due to their ‘educated’ way of looking at images, and reading them for …
Poet David Whyte on personal power and writing: “Every action taken, from the moment we switch off the alarm clock in the morning to the way we write a line of poetry or design a product, has the potential to change the world, leave it cold with indifference, or perhaps more commonly, nudge it infinitesimally in the direction of good …
The following is an excerpt from the poem To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donoghue. It resonates today: especially its urging to pause and reflect in the quarantine winter. This is the time to be slow,Lie low to the wallUntil the bitter weather passes. Try, as best you can, not to letThe wire brush of doubtScrape from your …
Gwendolyn Brooks died on this day in 2000, 20 years ago. She is one of the most admired, influential, and widely-read poets of 20th-century American poetry. She had the distinction of being the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position—and Poet Laureate …