--- title: "10 Way Quotes By Robert Hass" description: "10 Way quotes by Robert Hass. Plus more from Robert Hass and more Way sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/87b/robert-hass-3548_cartoon_one-way-to-escape-the-universe-in-which_1884591.png" --- > [One way to escape the universe in which everything is a kind of media cartoon is to write about the part of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/one-way-to-escape-the-universe-in-which-everything-is-a-kind-of-media/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/87b/robert-hass-3548_cartoon_one-way-to-escape-the-universe-in-which_1884591.png) > [Not to make too much of a claim for poetry, but this is a question that goes to the moral heart of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/not-to-make-too-much-of-a-claim-for-poetry-but-this-is-a-question/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd1/robert-hass-3548_any_not-to-make-too-much-of-a-claim-for-poet_1975578.png) > [I think that my responsibility to my art is to try to get it right or to push the boundaries of what…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/i-think-that-my-responsibility-to-my-art-is-to-try-to-get-it-right-or/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d7f/robert-hass-3548_able_i-think-that-my-responsibility-to-my-art_2754931.png) > [At some level, you have to be able to say, "This is my task." It's in small, local ways that you keep…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/at-some-level-you-have-to-be-able-to-say-this-is-my-task-it-s-in/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/796/robert-hass-3548_able_at-some-level-you-have-to-be-able-to-say_3166646.png) > [It seems like every ten years there's a book that says that poetry used to be popular, and now it's not, but…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/it-seems-like-every-ten-years-there-s-a-book-that-says-that-poetry/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3bf/robert-hass-3548_audience_it-seems-like-every-ten-years-there-s-a_596989.png) > [It's clear that there has to be some play between the vitality of invention in economic life and some regulation of it,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/it-s-clear-that-there-has-to-be-some-play-between-the-vitality-of/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e99/robert-hass-3548_20th-century_it-s-clear-that-there-has-to-be-some-pla_2632333.jpg) > [One of the interesting things about the history of poetry in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries is that people who read…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/one-of-the-interesting-things-about-the-history-of-poetry-in-the-16th/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f2c/robert-hass-3548_18th-century_one-of-the-interesting-things-about-the_1946375.jpg) > [As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature. Then what I decided is I am a spokesman for…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/as-poet-laureate-i-was-asked-to-be-a-spokesman-for-literature-then/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/07e/robert-hass-3548_books_as-poet-laureate-i-was-asked-to-be-a-spo_2384906.png) > [After a while I understood that, talking this way, everything dissolves: justice, pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/after-a-while-i-understood-that-talking-this-way-everything-dissolves/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/726/robert-hass-3548_boat_after-a-while-i-understood-that-talking_564389.jpg) > [Another problem about writing about politics in the "age of globalization" is that so much of the violence in the form of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/another-problem-about-writing-about-politics-in-the-age-of/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/faf/robert-hass-3548_age_another-problem-about-writing-about-poli_2629036.png) ## Other authors on Way ## More by Robert Hass > [It's the same with this idea of a literate public, and also of a democracy in which people have access to and really read…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/it-s-the-same-with-this-idea-of-a-literate-public-and-also-of-a/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [All the new thinking is about loss. In this it resembles all the old thinking](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/all-the-new-thinking-is-about-loss-in-this-it-resembles-all-the-old/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [Poetry, when it takes sides, when it proposes solutions, isn't any smarter than anybody else.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/poetry-when-it-takes-sides-when-it-proposes-solutions-isn-t-any/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [When I was in college, I lost my scholarship one year. I had enough money for tuition, but not room and board. So I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/when-i-was-in-college-i-lost-my-scholarship-one-year-i-had-enough/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/as-poet-laureate-i-was-asked-to-be-a-spokesman-for-literature/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [After Pope, in the beginning of Romanticism, people developed the idea that imagination rather than reason was a special form of knowledge and its…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/after-pope-in-the-beginning-of-romanticism-people-developed-the-idea/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [They are the kinds of things that make us a community: attachment to place, attachment to local arts traditions, the ability to read literature,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/they-are-the-kinds-of-things-that-make-us-a-community-attachment-to/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [I think that were I in the middle of an obsession to write about, say, sudden oak death in California or my grandchildren or…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/i-think-that-were-i-in-the-middle-of-an-obsession-to-write-about-say/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [I suppose there's something to be said for the sheer reinforcement of our beliefs, but really I think poetry is more useful as disenchantment…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/i-suppose-there-s-something-to-be-said-for-the-sheer-reinforcement-of/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [If you were making poetry out of convictions - trying to convince other people - you were in the territory of rhetoric, and that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/if-you-were-making-poetry-out-of-convictions-trying-to-convince-other/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [Milton was the first person who really experimented with putting politics into sonnets.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/milton-was-the-first-person-who-really-experimented-with-putting/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [When I came into the job, funding for the humanities at the federal level was being drastically cut. This was the high tide of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/when-i-came-into-the-job-funding-for-the-humanities-at-the-federal/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [One may prefer spring and summer to autumn and winter, but preference is hardly to the point. The earth turns, and we live in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/one-may-prefer-spring-and-summer-to-autumn-and-winter-but-preference/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [“ A Faint Music by Robert Hass Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/a-faint-music-by-robert-hass-maybe-you-need-to-write-a-poem-about/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) > [“When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/when-everything-broken-is-broken-and-everything-dead-is-dead-and-the/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/way/robert-hass/#itemlist", "name": "10 Way Quotes By Robert Hass", "numberOfItems": 10, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "One way to escape the universe in which everything is a kind of media cartoon is to write about the part of your life that doesn't feel 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to make too much of a claim for poetry, but this is a question that goes to the moral heart of the business of any art: 'How do you see the world, and what right do you have to see the world in the way that you do?'", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Hass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/not-to-make-too-much-of-a-claim-for-poetry-but-this-is-a-question/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd1/robert-hass-3548_any_not-to-make-too-much-of-a-claim-for-poet_1975578.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd1/robert-hass-3548_any_not-to-make-too-much-of-a-claim-for-poet_1975578.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd1/robert-hass-3548_any_not-to-make-too-much-of-a-claim-for-poet_1975578.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Not to make too much of a claim for poetry, but this is a question that goes to the moral heart of the…” — Robert Hass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", 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"https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3bf/robert-hass-3548_audience_it-seems-like-every-ten-years-there-s-a_596989.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3bf/robert-hass-3548_audience_it-seems-like-every-ten-years-there-s-a_596989.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It seems like every ten years there's a book that says that poetry used to be popular, and now it's not, but…” — Robert Hass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "It's clear that there has to be some play between the vitality of invention in economic life and some regulation of it, and in some ways the great ideological wars of the 20th century that cost so many lives had to do with whether to have managed economies directed by government or economies directed by the free movement of capital, which is only partially subject to government regulation.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Hass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/it-s-clear-that-there-has-to-be-some-play-between-the-vitality-of/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e99/robert-hass-3548_20th-century_it-s-clear-that-there-has-to-be-some-pla_2632333.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e99/robert-hass-3548_20th-century_it-s-clear-that-there-has-to-be-some-pla_2632333.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e99/robert-hass-3548_20th-century_it-s-clear-that-there-has-to-be-some-pla_2632333.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It's clear that there has to be some play between the vitality of invention in economic life and some…” — Robert Hass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "One of the interesting things about the history of poetry in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries is that people who read liked getting their information in rhyme just as much as in prose. The genre that we would think of as nonfiction often was written in verse in forms like the Georgic when people thought that one of the tasks of poetry was conveying arguments and information in a pleasant way.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Hass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/one-of-the-interesting-things-about-the-history-of-poetry-in-the-16th/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f2c/robert-hass-3548_18th-century_one-of-the-interesting-things-about-the_1946375.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f2c/robert-hass-3548_18th-century_one-of-the-interesting-things-about-the_1946375.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f2c/robert-hass-3548_18th-century_one-of-the-interesting-things-about-the_1946375.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“One of the interesting things about the history of poetry in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries is that…” — Robert Hass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature. Then what I decided is I am a spokesman for this other imagination of community - not the one showing up in the market. Nobody was tending to the way we're imaginatively connected to each other.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Hass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/as-poet-laureate-i-was-asked-to-be-a-spokesman-for-literature-then/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/07e/robert-hass-3548_books_as-poet-laureate-i-was-asked-to-be-a-spo_2384906.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/07e/robert-hass-3548_books_as-poet-laureate-i-was-asked-to-be-a-spo_2384906.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/07e/robert-hass-3548_books_as-poet-laureate-i-was-asked-to-be-a-spo_2384906.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“As poet laureate, I was asked to be a spokesman for literature. Then what I decided is I am a spokesman for…” — Robert Hass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 9, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "After a while I understood that, talking this way, everything dissolves: justice, pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman I made love to and I remembered how, holding her small shoulders in my hands sometimes, I felt a violent wonder at her presence like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat, muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her. Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Hass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/after-a-while-i-understood-that-talking-this-way-everything-dissolves/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/726/robert-hass-3548_boat_after-a-while-i-understood-that-talking_564389.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/726/robert-hass-3548_boat_after-a-while-i-understood-that-talking_564389.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/726/robert-hass-3548_boat_after-a-while-i-understood-that-talking_564389.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“After a while I understood that, talking this way, everything dissolves: justice, pine, hair, woman, you and…” — Robert Hass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 10, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Another problem about writing about politics in the \"age of globalization\" is that so much of the violence in the form of war and also in the forms of institutional violence - sweatshops, child labor, victimization of people economically - happens elsewhere and out of sight. And when we do know about it and need to witness it, it's always mediated by images of one kind or another, so you're kind of stuck trying to write about what it's like trying to be you living your life thinking about and experiencing this stuff in that way.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Hass" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/another-problem-about-writing-about-politics-in-the-age-of/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/faf/robert-hass-3548_age_another-problem-about-writing-about-poli_2629036.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/faf/robert-hass-3548_age_another-problem-about-writing-about-poli_2629036.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/faf/robert-hass-3548_age_another-problem-about-writing-about-poli_2629036.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Another problem about writing about politics in the \"age of globalization\" is that so much of the violence…” — Robert Hass", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/way/robert-hass/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/way/robert-hass/", "name": "Way Quotes by Robert Hass", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/way/robert-hass/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/87b/robert-hass-3548_cartoon_one-way-to-escape-the-universe-in-which_1884591.png" }, "description": "10 Way quotes by Robert Hass. 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