Richard Hugo famous quotes

03-25-2025

You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.
-- Richard Hugo

#Reality #Feelings
To write a poem you must have a streak of arrogance-- not in real life I hope. In real life try to be nice. It will save you a hell of a lot of trouble and give you more time to write.
-- Richard Hugo

#Real #Nice #Writing
Assuming you can write clear English sentences, give up all worry about communication. If you want to communicate, use the telephone.
-- Richard Hugo

#Giving Up #Communication #Writing
Rub a half potato on your wart and wrap it in a damp cloth. Close your eyes and whirl three times and throw. Then bury rag and spud exactly where they fall.
-- Richard Hugo

#Fall #Eye #Half
A good creative-writing teacher can save a good writer a lot of time.
-- Richard Hugo

#Teacher #Writing #Creative
In the world of imagination, all things belong.
-- Richard Hugo

#Imagination #World
A creative writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters.
-- Richard Hugo

#Teaching #Writing #Class
Say nothing and just make music and you'll find plenty to say.
-- Richard Hugo

#Plenty
I will garden on the double run, my rhythm obvious in the ringing rakes, and trust in fate to keep me poor and kind and work until my heart is short, then go out slowly with a feeble grin, my fingers flexing but my eyes gone gray from cramps and the lack of oxygen.
-- Richard Hugo

#Death #Running #Eye
An act of imagination is an act of self-acceptance.
-- Richard Hugo

#Acceptance #Self #Imagination
Never write a poem about anything that ought to have a poem written about it.
-- Richard Hugo

#Writing
If you want to communicate, use the telephone
-- Richard Hugo

#Want #Telephones #Use
Don't write with a pen. Ink tends to give the impression the words shouldn't be changed.
-- Richard Hugo

#Writing #Giving #Ink
Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.
-- Richard Hugo

#Hard Work #Waiting #Lucky
Think small.... If you can't think small, try philosophy or social criticism.
-- Richard Hugo

#Philosophy #Thinking #Trying
Scholars look for final truths they will never find. Creative writers concern themselves with possibilities that are always there to the receptive.
-- Richard Hugo

#Creative #Finals #Looks

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