Top 25 Quotes by Mark Strand

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

It's very hard to write humor.

I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.

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

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

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.

I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.

I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

The future is always beginning now.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.