Marilyn Nelson Quotes

#1. How sweet it is to let God purge our souls of ego and bitterness, and to have a little taste of heaven here on earth.

Marilyn Nelson

#2. One of my graduate school professors, to whom I started sending poems when I started writing again after a 10-year hiatus, suggested I prepare a book manuscript which he could send to publishers for me.

Marilyn Nelson

#3. What is gentlest in love is love's violence.
Losing yourself in love, you reach love's goal.
Love makes you suffer, as love makes you whole.
Love steals your everything and makes you rich.
Love is both meaningless and poetry.
Captured by love, by love you are set free.

Marilyn Nelson

#4. Many performance poets seem to believe that yelling a poem makes it comprehensible. They are wrong.

Marilyn Nelson

#5. For much of my life - my sister and I have talked about this - when we moved, we just thought the world behind us disappeared, and all of the people, they just didn't exist any more.

Marilyn Nelson

#6. Back when I was in college, people used to talk about the alienation of the artist, not ever quite fitting in any place.

Marilyn Nelson

#7. I did not have to learn to love you: You were chosen for me. I knew that the first time I saw you.
- George Washington Carver

Marilyn Nelson

#8. After you kind of find your footing, sonnets are what comes easiest.

Marilyn Nelson

#9. I had a lot of hatred, but I realized that kind of hate didn't do much. I had to start fueling myself with pride. We owe the ancestors that. So many of the souls who died in bondage just want us to recognize their struggle.

Marilyn Nelson

#10. Writing in form is a way of developing your thinking - your thinking along with the tradition. In a way, it's not you alone, it's you in partnership.

Marilyn Nelson

#11. There's more beauty on Earth than I can bear.

Marilyn Nelson

#12. Miracles happen all the time. We're here, aren't we?

Marilyn Nelson