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"I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me."
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"When we feel lost in time, with only shadows of the past living in our mind; when the moment, which "was", no longer "is and when only silence remains, loads of questions arise. We can cry a river or we may wonder: "What went wrong?"

"The skeletons of the past must not hold back the dream of a new life, even though fear and regret, guilt and remorse may unsettle us during the effort to give our future a new home. ['Into a new life']"

"I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual."

"If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what it is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is the lot of the average human being better now that in the time of the Pharaohs?"

"She seemed to be occupied with of inner chamber of ideas and to have slight need for visible objects."

"There is always a zone where somebody is nobody, there is always a zone where somebody is somebody and there is always a zone where nobody is nobody."

"An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know.All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was!-that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant . . ."

"She was almost felled to the ground by the extraordinary sight which now met her eyes. There was the garden and some birds. The world was going on as usual. All the time she was writing the world had continued."

"Thoughts, quotes, and philosophies-good or bad-cause us to evaluate ourselves. And that is good."

"I am but the reflection in your eyes, the effect of your expressions, and the sum of your praise and criticism."
Explore more quotes by Anne Stevenson

"I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy."

"Peter Lucas and I live in Durham but spend a great of time in North Wales, where we have a cottage in the mountains, and in Vermont, USA, with my sister - who is a children's writer married to a poet."

"Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions."

"I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art."

"I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless."

"I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century."

"I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature."
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