Neither a person entirely broken nor one entirely whole can speak. In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble. — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
I don't work on poems and essays at once. They walk on different legs, speak with different tongues, draw from different parts… — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
History, mythology, and folktales are filled with stories of people punished for saying the truth. Only the Fool, exempt from society's rules,… — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger… — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
I don't have a cell phone (though for years I've kept saying, "soon"). — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
I once was asked to contribute to a mushroom poem anthology. I didn't have anything, and so instead ended up writing the introduction. I… — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
Everything has two endings- a horse, a piece of string, a phone call. Before a life, air. And after. As silence is not silence,… — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
A certain amount of housekeeping also goes on in my poems. I wash doorknobs, do dishes, mop floors, patch carpets, cook. — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags, being careful between the trees to leave extra room. — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
My job as a human being as well as a writer is to feel as thoroughly as possible the experience that I am part… — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
I want to preserve a certain unknowing about my own poems - perhaps because unknowing is in itself a useful poetic thirst. To move… — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
Habit, laziness, and fear conspire to keep us comfortably within the familiar. — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
Metaphors think with the imagination and the senses. The hot chili peppers in them explode in the mouth and the mind. — Jane Hirshfield Copy Share Image
