Top 25 Quotes by Mark Strand

For some of us, the less said about the way we do things the better.

Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.

There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest.

Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.

From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.

The future is always beginning now.

Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.