Ellen Bass Quotes

#1. I think many people love poetry who don't know they love it. People are sometimes afraid of poetry, or they've been introduced to poetry that doesn't speak to them.

Ellen Bass

#2. I wanted to be a writer since I was in high school, but I never thought it was possible.

Ellen Bass

#3. I live in Santa Cruz. I moved here in 1974 and couldn't leave.

Ellen Bass

#4. People don't need to be forced to grow. All we need is favorable circumstances: respect, love, honesty, and the space to explore.

Ellen Bass

#5. There is comfort in knowing that you don't have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your power to heal.

Ellen Bass

#6. Visualizing how you want to be is [an] effective way to move toward your goal.

Ellen Bass

#7. the dolphins stitch sky to sea.

Ellen Bass

#8. You can look at my life and say there've been some real tragedies, and there have been. But there've also been some exquisitely beautiful times. To me, those far outweigh the others.

Ellen Bass

#9. One woman was sure that her father would appear on her front steps and try to kill her. In actuality, he hid from her after that, avoiding her totally. He was scared of her. You may not realize it, but you hold a lot of power when you tell the truth.

Ellen Bass

#10. If you've managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn't care.
But when Newton's apple
fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.

Ellen Bass

#11. It's impossible to feel good about yourself if you are doing things that you aren't proud of ... It's essential that you ... [do] things you can respect and admire.

Ellen Bass

#12. Until lions start writing down their own stories, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. - AFRICAN PROVERB

Ellen Bass

#13. Allow yourself to release the emotions you have struggled all your life to contain.

Ellen Bass

#14. Garrison Keillor read several of my poems on 'The Writer's Almanac' and I've heard from listeners nationally and internationally. That's one of the great gifts of email.

Ellen Bass

#15. It's a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little.

Ellen Bass

#16. Everyone has the right to tell the truth about her own life.

Ellen Bass

#17. Poetry is the most intimate of all writing. I want to speak first from me to myself and then from me to you.

Ellen Bass

#18. Healing isn't just about pain. It's about learning to love yourself. As you move from feeling like a victim to being a proud survivor, you will have glimmers of hope, pride and satisfaction. Those are natural by-products of healing.

Ellen Bass

#19. Exercise stimulates your circulation, massages your internal organs, stretches and strengthens your muscles, and energizes you. Exercise is also a great way to discharge tension, work through emotional blocks, release anger, and gain self-esteem.

Ellen Bass

#20. So much inspires me. People living their lives with courage, beauty of all kinds, nature in all its aspects, people I love and people I hardly know, and, of course, other poets.

Ellen Bass

#21. There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one.That is spirituality.

Ellen Bass

#22. A dread that something bad was waiting for me has followed me most of my life. I have a morbid fear of the dark. I will never close my eyes in the shower. There are parts of my own house I am just beginning to go into.

Ellen Bass