Marguerite Young Quotes

Some of the poetic writers who insert passages of realism in their texts have no underlying philosophy to uphold them, and revert to realism.

I believe that all my work explores the human desire or obsession for utopias, and the structure of all my works is the search for utopias lost and rediscovered.

All creatures are flawed, but out of the flaw may come the universe.

If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss.

All my writing is about the recognition that there is no single reality. But the beauty of it is that you nevertheless go on, walking towards utopia, which may not exist, on a bridge which might end before you reach the other side.

The first money I ever had was when I received an award from the American Association of University Women.

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent.

I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night.

If you don't have obsessions, don't write. my characters are obsessed.

A lawyer I once knew told me of a strange case, a suffragette who had never married. After her death, he opened her trunk and discovered 50 wedding gowns.

Life has no beginning, middle or end.

I would say my theme has always been paradise lost, always the lost cause, the lost leader, the lost utopia.

I would never write realistic prose. I don't like people who try to write in a poetic style, but in the course of their book abandon it for realism, and weave back and forth like drunkards between the surreal and the real.

Don't blindly follow any leader.

I don't believe there can be a poetic novel without political consciousness. I have a strong political conscience.

If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin.

A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.

Every heart is the other heart. Every soul is the other soul. Every face is the other face. The individual is the one illusion.

If there is no certain reality, the idea of following a leader must be scrutinized.

Twice in his life Eugene Victor Debs took the long leap to the Ultima Thule of prison, passing beyond the realm of the acceptable into the nonacceptable, from respectability into the criminal community of the monster who was an enemy to the people.

we live our fate before we realize exactly what it is.

I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am, more so, than by Eliot. Actually, I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons.

At the age of 18 all young poets are sure they will be dead at 21 - of old age.

Is it experimental to have been influenced by the Bible? By Saint Augustine?

When the dream came into being, I always pursued it.

I've been willing to go for years without publishing. That's been my career.

I try to teach my students style, but always as a part of life, not as ornament. Style has to come out of communicating coherent thought, not in sticking little flowers on speeches. Style and substance and a sense of life are the things literature is composed of. One must use one's own personality in relationship to life and language, of course, and everyone has such a relationship. Some people find it, some don't find it, but it's there.

When you have examined all the illusions of life and know that there isn't any reality, but you nevertheless go on, then you are a mature human being. You accept the idea that it is all mask and illusion and that people are in disguise. You see the crumbl

I think most people dont like others who, without a voice of their own, emulate the other. I certainly dont want anybody just to pick up my thoughts and hand them back to me.

All the books I have written have been one book, from the beginning.

I think there is a rage against women. I've come to see that now although at the time I did not notice it. I was preoccupied with my teaching and my writing.

The first poem I ever wrote, about loss, when I was 5 years old, expressed the themes of everything I would ever write.

I never thought of myself as either a woman or a man. I thought of myself as a person who was born to a writer, who was doomed to be a writer.

I never fantasized or invented a thing, not one thing. I knew every single thing I ever wrote about.

There were also some cruel reviews by women, but the tone of the male reviewers, sometimes hysterical, was different. I have suffered, but I don't want to name names but there have been men who have seemed to want to destroy me or my writing, men I don't even know.

Dreiser... I love... and almost wouldn't speak to anyone who ever attacked him.

I knew Anais Nin, who called me after I had been away for a few years. She was seeking help because at that time no one would give her a decent review. She was made fun of.