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"Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine."
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"Reality is not enough for us, that's why we have invented art to create different realities!"

"The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons, but children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed."

"Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. What we cannot imagine cannot come into being. A good definition marks our starting point and lets us know where we want to end up. As we move toward our desired destination we chart the journey, creating a map. We need a map to guide us on our journey to love--starting with the place where we know what we mean when we speak of love."

"The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity."

"Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel."

"What if dragons breathed bubbles and purred when they cuddled and giggled at chivalrous knights for their troubles?What if dragons felt soft, having scales made of cloth,and they moved rather slow like a brown-throated sloth?What if dragons were shyand did easily crywhen confronted by characters callous and sly?What if dragons did goodbut were misunderstoodso men mercilessly slew the beasts right where they stood?What if dragons aren't missedbecause there is no listof extinct types of quarry that now don't exist?"

"Who but the artist has the power to open man up, to set free the imagination? The others - priest, teacher, saint, statesman, warrior - hold us to the path of history. They keep us chained to the rock, that the vultures may eat out our hearts. It is the artist who has the courage to go against the crowd; he is the unrecognized "hero of our time" - and of all time."

"The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope."

"Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."
Explore more quotes by Rita Dove


"It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing."


"For years, I had heard about the lack of interest in literature in the U.S. and I had complained about it. I failed to understand how people could fail to be moved by art."


"I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing."


"I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry."


"What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world!"


"The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something."
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