"So, I've never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don't want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet."

War, People, Cause, Want

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"So, I've never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don't want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet."

Exlpore more War quotes

"The doctrine that war is always a greater evil seems to imply a materialist ethic, a belief that death and pain are the greatest evils. But I do not think they are... All men die, and most men miserably. That two soldiers on opposite sides, each believing his own country to be in the right, each at the moment when his selfishness is most in abeyance and his will to sacrifice in the ascendant, should kill [each] other in plain battle seems to me by no means one of the most terrible things in this terrible world."

C. S. Lewis, British Author

War, Ethics, Death, Humanity

"Words of war, on a piece of paper. Where peace is torn off, crumbled and toss in the waste basket."

Anthony Liccione, American Author

War, Peace, Word, Destruction

"In raining bullets on those silent faces, already turned away from this world, you think you are disfiguring the face of our truth."

Albert Camus, French Philosopher

War, Silence, Truth, Violence

"What is the first thing we did when we took control of Iraq? Protect the oil fields. Remember the administration quote about how the oil would pay for the war."

Peter Schuyler, English Politician

War, Control, First, Iraq

"There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it."

Alexis de Tocqueville, French Scientist

War, People, End, Will

"Those people who want to express their religious beliefs on public property should enjoy the same rights that we provide to those protesting the war in Iraq."

Ernest Istook, American Politician

War, People, Beliefs, Rights

"In the matter of war, ask this question to yourself and to your own fellow country men: Have you ever seen any politician in your country without legs, without arms, without eyes after war? No! You can't see such a thing because honourless politicians always stay in the safe ports while they send others to the zone of death!"

Mehmet Murat ildan, Turkish Philosopher

War, Regret, Truth, Wisdom, Power

"In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion."

James Reston, American Journalist

War, Commonsense, First, Open

"To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences."

Robert Byrd, American Politician

War,

"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he added."

Leo Tolstoy, Russian Novelist

War, Murder, Victory, God

Explore more quotes by Diane Wakoski

"American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet."

Poetry, Individuality, Painting

"Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground."

Poetry, Language

"I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets."

Poetry, Now, Shakespeare, Voice

"Sometimes the archaism of the language when it's spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today."

Love, Irish, Language, Today

"Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one's geographic landscape, sometimes out of one's cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins."

Poetry, Gender, Myths

"But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events."

Poetry, Events, Word

"I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior."

Poetry, People

"My poems are almost all written as Diane. I don't have any problems with that, and if other women choose to identify with this, I think that's terrific."

Woman, Women, Poems, Problems

"Other people have noticed more of an evolution than I have and so I'll try to tell you where I'm coming from and also relate it to what I think other people perceive."

People, Evolution

"I think I'm a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I'm not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn't work and why."

Reading, Work, Poetry, People, Poems