A poem is like a child; at some point we have to let it go and trust that it will make its… — Dorianne Laux Child Copy Share Image
That's how it is sometimes--God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you're just too tired to open… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
We continue to speak, if only in whispers, to something inside us that longs to be named. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
“… They are savage for knowledge, for beauty and truth. They crawl on their knees to find it.” — Dorianne Laux Beauty Copy Share Image
I try to avoid calling myself a poet because I think that's something someone else has to call you. It's like bragging. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
There's no word for what Young does, only for what he accomplishes-the capturing of small, daily miracles. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's. — Dorianne Laux Good writing Copy Share Image
I would say my life experiences are my poetry, whether I'm writing about those actual, factual experiences or not. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I don't know if we ever have enough distance to "see" our own trajectory. We're in the muddled middle of it. Who… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
The reason I started writing was because I was a little kid in San Diego who was getting beaten up by her… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Who you are contributes to your poetry in a number of important ways, but you shouldn't identify with your poems so closely… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I love people and psychology. As a writer, I’m not so interested in Fred getting from the living room to the car.… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
“To write without any awareness of a tradition you are trying to become a part of would be self-defeating. Every artist alive… — Dorianne Laux Art Copy Share Image
“And oh, the oh my nape of the neck. The up-swept oh my nape of the neck. I could walk behind anyone… — Dorianne Laux Fall in love Copy Share Image
Someone spoke to me last night, told me the truth. Just a few words, but I recognized it. I knew I should… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I share my life experiences as a poet with my students. My poetic difficulties, joys, struggles and discoveries. If I read a… — Dorianne Laux Book Copy Share Image
How not to imagine the tumors ripening beneath his skin, flesh I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips, pressed my belly and… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Poetry is an intimate act. It's about bringing forth something that's inside you--whether it is a memory, a philosophical idea, a deep… — Dorianne Laux Apprehension Copy Share Image
Moon In the Window I wish I could say I was the kind of child who watched the moon from her window,… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
We with my husband [Joseph Millar] are often the first reader for one another's work, and we often also have the last… — Dorianne Laux Books Copy Share Image
I write to invite the voices in, to watch the angel wrestle, to feel the devil gather on its haunches and rise.… — Dorianne Laux Angel Copy Share Image
Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice. It won't magically burst forth in your poems the next time… — Dorianne Laux Choices Copy Share Image
It's difficult to talk about [W.S.] Merwin's poems, as it's hard to talk about a feeling or a smell. It is what… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the… — Dorianne Laux Art Copy Share Image
“You've walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted… — Dorianne Laux Carnival Copy Share Image
“The slate black sky. The middle step of the back porch. And long ago my mother's necklace, the beads rolling north and… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Every poem I write falls short in some important way. But I go on trying to write the one that won’t. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Every good poem asks a question, and every good poet asks every question. — Dorianne Laux Poet Copy Share Image
Tinted Distances is a tender meditation that reveals a careful eye and steady devotion to elegy and ode. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I also have my backpack of the tried-and-true, and because it is new to [my students], it becomes fresh to me again… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
“How many losses does it take to stop a heart, to lay waste to the vocabularies of desire?” — Dorianne Laux Death Copy Share Image
I'm not the only person in the world who is suffering. I'm trying to talk to the world, responding to those voices. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
If you want to be a writer in the world you really have to sit down and say, 'Why do I want… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
When you have worked with people all day who have so little and struggle to make it stretch, who live outside the… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
The changes that have occurred in poetry have been minor when you look at it over the scale of human time. It's… — Dorianne Laux Change Copy Share Image
![“We with my husband [Joseph Millar] are often the first reader for one another's work, and we often also have the last word. We trust each other. We have our past working life in common, our recombined families, as well as our life as teachers, and we read much of the same literature and have…” quote by Dorianne Laux](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a02/dorianne-laux-12252_books_we-with-my-husband-joseph-millar-are-oft_3105400.jpg)
![“It's difficult to talk about [W.S.] Merwin's poems, as it's hard to talk about a feeling or a smell. It is what it is, but so much so that it overwhelms both sense and the senses. I aspire to something about his work, that imbues his poems, though I'm not sure I could say what that is. A purity…” quote by Dorianne Laux](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c1/dorianne-laux-12252_aspire_it-s-difficult-to-talk-about-w-s-merwin_654128.png)
![“I also have my backpack of the tried-and-true, and because it is new to [my students], it becomes fresh to me again as well.” quote by Dorianne Laux](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0dd/dorianne-laux-12252_backpack_i-also-have-my-backpack-of-the-tried-and_1033225.png)
