Mary RuefleI hated childhood / I hate adulthood / And I love being alive. ✨ Mary Ruefle (2014). Trances of the Blast, p.12, Wave Books341LifeLoveReading
Mary RuefleMy happiness is marred only by my failure to attain it. ✨ Mary Ruefle (2014). Trances of the Blast, p.16, Wave Books374Reading
Mary RuefleAlthough all poets aspire to be birds, no bird aspires to be a poet.302Philosophy
Mary RuefleI study nature so as not to do foolish things. ✨ Mary Ruefle (2011). Selected Poems, p.46, Wave Books357Reading
Mary RuefleSomething unpronounceable followed by a long silence points out my life is becoming a landscape. ✨ Mary Ruefle (1989). The Adamant, p.13, University of Iowa Press281Life
Mary RuefleIn our marginal existence, what else is there but this voice within us, this great weirdness we are always leaning forward to listen to?348Life
Mary RuefleThere 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.272Truth
Mary RuefleIn 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 w… ▶316LifeReadingTime
Mary RuefleI 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, … ▶251Humanity
Mary RuefleThe origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the secret and keep it. ✨ Mary … ▶3310Reading
Mary RuefleWe are all one question, and the best answer seems to be love—a connection between things. ✨ Mary Ruefle (2012). Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, p.197, Wave Bo… ▶202LoveReading
Mary RuefleIrreverence is a way of playing hooky and remaining present at the same time. ✨ Mary Ruefle (2012). Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, p.217, Wave Books205ReadingTime
Mary RuefleIn the end I would rather wonder than know ✨ Mary Ruefle (2012). Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, p.101, Wave Books228Reading
Mary RuefleIf we knew the value of suffering, we would ask for it.217Love
Mary RuefleThere’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. 174Life
Mary RuefleOnce 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 i… ▶142Reading
Mary RuefleThe industrial world destroys nature not because it doesn’t love it but because it is not afraid of it. ✨ Mary Ruefle (2012). Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, p… ▶165LoveReading
Mary RuefleEvery time it starts to snow, I would like to have sex.147Time
Mary RuefleI like to read because it kills me. ✨ Mary Ruefle (2002). Apparition Hill, Cavankerry PressLtd147Reading
