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Kay Ryan

Kay Ryan Quotes

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Famous Kay Ryan Quotes

“If we have not struggled/as hard as we can/at our strongest/how will we sense/the shape of our losses/or know what sustains/us longest or name/what change costs us,/saying how strange/it is that one sector/of the self can step in/for another in trouble,/how loss activates/a latent double, how/we can feed/as upon nectar/upon need?”

IfsKnowsNeedsSelfHardNamesLossStepsTroubleStrangeCostShapesStrongestLatentActivateNectar
Book:Say Uncle: Poems
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“BAIT GOAT There is a distance where magnets pull, we feel, having held them back. Likewise there is a distance where words attract. Set one out like a bait goat and wait and seven others will approach. But watch out: roving packs can pull your word away. You find your stake yanked and some rough bunch to thank.”

FeelsWaitingWatchesApproachDistanceSevenBunchRoughStakesPacksGoatsMagnetBaitRoving
Book:The Best of It: New and Selected Poems
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“I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly - and with very little financial encouragement - saving lives and minds. I can’t think of a more efficient, hopeful or egalitarian machine, with the possible exception of the bicycle.”

ThinkingWantYearsMindLittlesI CanFactsHomeCommunityCollegeMachinesEncouragementFinancialCelebrateSavingHopefulEfficientBicycleSave A LifeCommunity College
Author:Kay Ryan
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“It seems like many people think that if you drive yourself crazy, then you can write. I’m absolutely not interested in that. It made sense to me to be as whole and well as I could be, and as happy. I wanted to see what a fortunate life would produce. What writing would come out of a mind that didn’t try to torment itself? What did I have to know? What did I have to do rather than what can I torment and bend myself into doing? What was the fruit on that tree?”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsWritingTryingMindWellsMadeWholeSeemsWantedTreeCrazyProduceFruitFortunateNot InterestedTormentFortunate Life
Author:Kay Ryan
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“I don't think any poetry is written that isn't primarily written to the self, in a way... I'm always talking to myself. But I seem to want somebody else to listen to it. I need, I do want an audience. So it's a strange thing. It's a very private conversation that then, you make public, kind of, like, the starfish flipping its stomach out.”

ThinkingWayWantNeedsKindSelfSeemsTalkingAudienceWrittenStrangeConversationPoetry IsStomachStrange ThingsStarfish
Author:Kay Ryan
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