A poem is a finished work of the mind, it is not the work of a finished mind.

- Mary Ruefle

Once I witnessed a windstorm so severe two 100-year-old trees were uprooted on the spot. The next day, walking among the wreckage, I found the friabl…

- Mary Ruefle

In our marginal existence, what else is there but this voice within us, this great weirdness we are always leaning forward to listen to?

- Mary Ruefle

The origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the sec…

- Mary Ruefle

I am convinced that the first lyric poem was written at night, and that the moon was witness to the event and that the event was witness to the moon.…

- Mary Ruefle

I hated childhood / I hate adulthood / And I love being alive.

- Mary Ruefle

I'm lucky enough to occasionally be able to do something I love - write poems - and unlucky enough that what I love confuses and overwhelms me.

- Mary Ruefle

We are all one question, and the best answer seems to be love—a connection between things.

- Mary Ruefle

Now I will give you a piece of advice. I will tell you something that I absolutely believe you should do, and if you do not do it you will never be a…

- Mary Ruefle