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Quote by Robert Hass

“As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature. Then what I decided is I am a spokesman for this other imagination of community - not the one showing up in the market. Nobody was tending to the way we're imaginatively connected to each other.”

Quote by Robert Hass

Author

Robert Hass is an American poet known for his concise and profound poetry style. His works explore themes of nature, history, and the human condition, and have won numerous literary awards. more

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“I got interested in the question of literacy because writers are always moaning about why more people don't read books. They long for the good old days when people read serious novels.”

People Long Book Novel Serious Literacy Old Days Good Old Days Moaning

Author:Robert Hass

“Everybody has a different idea of when those good old days were, but everyone is convinced that there was a time when literature really mattered and that it doesn't now. They also tend to believe that it really matters someplace else - in very improbable places often. Russia is someone's idea of a place where literature really counts.”

Believe Ideas Different Matter Literature Convinced Russia Old Days Improbable Good Old Days Different Ideas

Author:Robert Hass

“As I started reading about it, I saw that at the beginning of the 19th century, outside of New England - which was an unusually literate place - practically no one could read or write. And even in New England, the overall rate was only about 60 percent. That still means four out of 10 people couldn't put their name to a will.”

People Writing Mean Stills Reading Names Saws Four Century Percent England Rate 19th Century New England

Author:Robert Hass

“The ideal of universal literacy, in the West anyway, was first of all a Protestant idea - that everybody had to be able to read to save their soul. That idea got transposed into an idea of the importance of literacy for democratic citizenship.”

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Author:Robert Hass

“A movement got started for common schools, and by the end of the 19th century, 91 percent of Americans could read and write.”

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Author:Robert Hass

“It was one of the great mass achievements of American civilization, and we did it because we thought if you were going to have a democratic form of government, people had to be able to read and understand complicated ideas on their own.”

People Ifs Ideas Government Able Form Civilization Achievement Mass Democratic Complicated Forms Of Government

Author:Robert Hass

“In California we froze property taxes, school size increased, test scores declined, and there was a massive middle-class white flight to private schools. We're turning into Victorian England at a very rapid rate.”

School White Class Middle Taxes Tests England Property Rate Size Flight California Score Middle Class Massive Rapids Victorian Private School Test Scores Property Taxes

Author:Robert Hass

“Futurism today is led by science-fiction writers, by sociologists, by historians. Now, I have nothing against them. I'm sure they do great work. But they're not scientists. They're clueless.”

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“If we want to have a two-class society and an unemployed, welfare-crippled lower class that has no access to equality and educational opportunity and no access to jobs and is resentful and furiously angry, we can have it - that's what we've been willing to pay for so far.”

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Author:Robert Hass

“There isn't a river or creek in the country - or there are very few - that doesn't have some small group of people working on a restoration or creek cleanup project. Let me give you one example that's a great metaphor: In Washington, D.C., there is a group called the Anacostia Watershed Society. Two rivers converge and define Washington - one which everybody knows about, the Potomac, and the Anacostia, which they don't. The Anacostia is one of the most polluted urban rivers in the country.”

People Knows Giving Two Country Groups Example Projects Rivers Let Me Metaphor Urban Restoration Small Groups Creeks Watersheds

Author:Robert Hass