All Donald Hall Quotes
- The greatest kindness would put a bullet in his bright eye. Bright
- Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing. Common
- Your presence in this house is almost as painful and enormous as your absence. Absence
- I wish you were that birch rising from the clump behind you, and I the gray oak alongside. Alongside
- The pleasure we feel, reading a poem, is our assurance of its integrity. Assurance
- To desire to write poems that endure-we undertake such a goal certain of two things: that in all likelihood we will fail, and if we… All
- But Blake's voices returned to dictate revisions. Blake
- Today when I begin writing I’m aware: something that I don’t understand drives this engine. Aware
- The form of free verse is as binding and as liberating as the form of a rondeau. Binding
- Joe DiMaggio batting sometimes gave the impression, the suggestion that the old rules and dimensions of baseball no longer applied to him, and that the… Applied
- I see no reason to spend your life writing poems unless your goal is to write great poems. Goal
- If our goal is to write poetry, the only way we are likely to be any good is to try to be as great as… Any
- Some of us are darkness lovers. We do not dislike the early and late daylight of June, but we cherish the increasing dark of November,… Bear
- Each year the big garden grew smaller and Jane - who grew flowers by choice, not corn or stringbeans - worked at the vegetables more… All
- If work is no antidote to death, nor a denial of it, death is a powerful stimulus to work. Get done what you can. Antidote
- I don't know where a poem comes from until after I've lived with it a long time. I've a notion that a poem comes from… Absolutely
- Work is style, and there is style without thought; not in theory, only in fact. When I take a sentence in my hand, raise it… Across
- I want to sleep like the birds then wake to write you again without hope that you read me. Bird
- We made in those days tiny identical rooms inside our bodies which the men who uncover our graves will find in a thousand years shining… Bodies
- Opposites are attracted when each one is anxious about its own character. Anxious
- You think that their dying is the worst thing that could happen. Then they stay dead. Dead