"I am Rita Dove, the beautiful dove. See my black neck, see my speck. My ass is not so much cracked but i want to get …"

"The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world."

"I am deeply grateful to the women who really blazed the way-poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath and Maxine Kumin."

"There are poets I return to again and again for sustenance: I read them, shake my head and wonder, How did they do th…"

"I discovered that poetry and drama have more in common than Aristotle, with his "classic dramatic unities," may have …"

"Aye, think! Since time and life began, Your mind has only feared and slept; Of all the beasts they called you man Onl…"

"Would you end war? Create great Peace."

"To be a god First I must be a god-maker: We are what we create."

"Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses."

"Up in the heights of the evening skies I see my City of Cities float In sunset’s golden and crimson dyes: I look, and…"