Ted Kooser Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

Now the seasons are closing their files
on each of us, the heavy drawers
full of certificates rolling back
into the tree trunks, a few old papers
flocking away. Someone we loved
has fallen from our thoughts,
making a little, glittering splash
like a bicycle pushed by a breeze.
Otherwise, not much has happened;
we fell in love again, finding
that one red reather on the wind.

Ted Kooser
There are mornings when everything brims with promise, even my empty cup.

Ted Kooser
A poem published in one of the very best literary magazines in the country might net you a check for enough money to buy half a sack of groceries.

Ted Kooser
When she left me I stood out in the thunderstorm, hoping to be destroyed by lightning. It missed, first left, then right.

Ted Kooser
A happy birthday this evening, I sat by an open window and read till the light was gone and the book was no more than a part of the darkness. I could easily have switched on a lamp, but I wanted to ride the day down into night, to sit alone, and smooth the unreadable page with the pale gray ghost of my hand

Ted Kooser
Somehow poets have gotten the idea that to write in the present tense is really cool, though most of our experience is in the past.

Ted Kooser
Turtle has just one plan at a time, and every cell buys into it.

Ted Kooser
All night, this soft rain from The distant past. No wonder I sometimes Waken as a child.

Ted Kooser
There's nothing wrong with delighting in what you do. In fact, most of the fun you'll have as a poet will come about during the process of writing.

Ted Kooser
The poem is the device through which the ordinary world is seen in a new way - engaging, compelling, even beautiful.

Ted Kooser
I like the idea of there being times when even words cost so much you used them sparingly. I have known a lot of old men and women who talked as if they were paying Western Union by the word.

Ted Kooser
So much to live for.
Each rope rings
a different bell.

Ted Kooser