Home / Quotes / Quote by Mary Ruefle

Quote by Mary Ruefle

“My happiness is marred only by my failure to attain it.”

Quote by Mary Ruefle

Book:Trances of the Blast

Work

Trances of the Blast

Trances of the Blast presents a series of poems that delve into the fragmented nature of recollection and the emotional impact of past events. The work uses stark, evocative language to examine how personal and collective histories resonate in the present, often through metaphors of destruction and renewal. The poems move between intimate reflections and broader meditations on change, creating a landscape where the ordinary becomes charged with deeper meaning. more

Author

Mary Ruefle is an American poet known for her unique style and profound themes. Her work is characterized by its concise language and deep insights, exploring themes of nature, memory, time, and the essence of human existence. She has won numerous awards for her poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. more

You May Also Like

“Once I witnessed a windstorm so severe two 100-year-old trees were uprooted on the spot. The next day, walking among the wreckage, I found the friable nests of birds, completely intact and unharmed on the ground. That the featherweight survive the massive, that this reversal of fortune takes place among us — that is what haunts me. I don’t know what it means.”

Knows Years Mean Two Next Found Tree Walking Bird Fortune Spots Massive Severe Next Day Nests Wreckage Reversal Old Trees

Book:Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures

Source: Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures

“I remember I was a child, and when I grew up I was a poet. It all happened at sixty miles an hour and on days when the clock stopped and all of humanity fit into a little chapel, into a pinecone, a shot of ouzo, a snail's shell, a piece of soggy rye on the pavement.”

Children Littles Remember Humanity Hours Pieces Happened Poet Grew Fit Grew Up Shots Miles Clock Sixty Shells Pavement Snail Chapel

Author:Mary Ruefle

“They needed someone to write a script of The Great Gatsby very quickly for the movie they were making. I took this job so I'd be sure to have some dough to support my family.”

Writing Jobs Actors Support Needed My Family Scripts Movie Dough Needed Someone

Author:Francis Ford Coppola

“I hated childhood / I hate adulthood / And I love being alive.”

Hate Love Is Alive Childhood I Hate Hated Adulthood

Book:Trances of the Blast

Source: Trances of the Blast

“In one sense, reading is a great waste of time. In another sense, it is a great extension of time, a way for one person to live a thousand and one lives in a single lifespan, to watch the great impersonal universe at work again and again That is why I read: I want everything to be okay. That’s why I read when I was a lonely kid and that’s why I read now that I’m a scared adult.”

Way Want Persons Kids Universe Reading Watches Thousand Waste Adults Lonely Okay Scared Wasting Time Again And Again Extensions Single Life

Author:Mary Ruefle

“There is a world which poets cannot seem to enter. It is the world everybody else lives in. And the only thing poets seem to have in common is their yearning to enter this world.”

World Seems Common This World Poet Yearning

Author:Mary Ruefle

“There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. Writers know that. I have never met a writer who does not crave to be alone. We have to be alone to do what we do.”

Knows Doe Differences Mets Lonely Crave Being Lonely

Author:Mary Ruefle

“There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.”

People Knows Former Intimacy Latter Feigning

Book:Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

Source: Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

“The past was a consumable, subject to the national preference for familiar products. And history, in America, is a dish best served plain. The first course could include a dollop of Italian in 1492, but not Spanish spice or French sauce or too much Indian corn. Nothing too filling or fancy ahead of the turkey and pumpkin pie, just the way Grandma used to cook it.”

Source: A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

“Everyone does what they can to avoid thinking. Laziness is the most basic human trait. People don't want to think -- they can't make the connection between entertainment and thought, they want immediate kicks. People will not be human until they get pleasure from thought. Only a thinking person can be a full person.”

People Thinking Want Humans Persons Doe Pleasure Connections Entertainment Kicks Traits Laziness Thinking Person

Author:Vera Chytilova