Marguerite Young Quotes

Once when Newton was away from his astronomical laboratory, he had returned to find that his little poodle dog Diamond had torn into shreds and eaten up part of his map showing distant star points. Perhaps God was punishing him for his neglect of God. He had picked up his poodle from its basket and had brushed its curls with his loving hand as he- not shouting in anger- had whispered serenely, consolingly, "Ah, little Diamond! Diamond! Thou dost not know the harm which thou hast done." Some corner of the universe had been made into pulp. He had left it so.

A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent.

I try to teach my students style, but always as a part of life, not as ornament. Style has to come out of communicating coherent thought, not in sticking little flowers on speeches. Style and substance and a sense of life are the things literature is composed of. One must use one's own personality in relationship to life and language, of course, and everyone has such a relationship. Some people find it, some don't find it, but it's there.

I knew Anais Nin, who called me after I had been away for a few years. She was seeking help because at that time no one would give her a decent review. She was made fun of.

Is it experimental to have been influenced by the Bible? By Saint Augustine?

Twice in his life Eugene Victor Debs took the long leap to the Ultima Thule of prison, passing beyond the realm of the acceptable into the nonacceptable, from respectability into the criminal community of the monster who was an enemy to the people.

I think there is a rage against women. I've come to see that now although at the time I did not notice it. I was preoccupied with my teaching and my writing.

A lawyer I once knew told me of a strange case, a suffragette who had never married. After her death, he opened her trunk and discovered 50 wedding gowns.

When you have examined all the illusions of life and know that there isn't any reality, but you nevertheless go on, then you are a mature human being. You accept the idea that it is all mask and illusion and that people are in disguise. You see the crumbl

All the books I have written have been one book, from the beginning.

All creatures are flawed, but out of the flaw may come the universe.

She would hang a sign in the restaurant window--Owt to luntsch. Bee bak in a whale. For she could not spell either.

The first poem I ever wrote, about loss, when I was 5 years old, expressed the themes of everything I would ever write.

If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss.

If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin.

At the age of 18 all young poets are sure they will be dead at 21 - of old age.

Some of the poetic writers who insert passages of realism in their texts have no underlying philosophy to uphold them, and revert to realism.

I believe that all my work explores the human desire or obsession for utopias, and the structure of all my works is the search for utopias lost and rediscovered.

I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am, more so, than by Eliot. Actually, I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons.

Don't blindly follow any leader.

I think most people don't like others who, without a voice of their own, emulate the other. I certainly don't want anybody just to pick up my thoughts and hand them back to me.

There were also some cruel reviews by women, but the tone of the male reviewers, sometimes hysterical, was different. I have suffered, but I don't want to name names-but there have been men who have seemed to want to destroy me or my writing, men I don't even know.

Forgive this breaking body as you forgive the star, the star whispering in the wind when the star is no more. Forgive this secret none can tell. None can tell and live.

If there is no certain reality, the idea of following a leader must be scrutinized.

He is but as the stubble of the field, and yet he has no beard.

The first money I ever had was when I received an award from the American Association of University Women.

I've been willing to go for years without publishing. That's been my career.

I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night.