Mfa Programs Quotes

#1. Does any (MFA) program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them?

Chang-rae Lee

#2. I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs.

Jess Row

#3. The ghosts of Rilke and Wordsworth
along with the 300+ MFA programs, which now seem to employ all Living Poets
have misled the American public egregiously into thinking that poets are morally pure and/or useless.

Katy Lederer

#4. Preoccupied with a single leaf, you won't see the tree.
Preoccupied with a single tree, you'll miss the entire forest.

Takuan Soho

#5. I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out.

Norman MacCaig

#6. I would be happier if people who went through MFA programs also were already, by then, deeply committed readers of poetry because we need readers of poetry as much as writers of poetry.

Edward Hirsch

#7. I'm a lion in a strange land.

Criss Jami

#8. There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.

Libba Bray

#9. I think in terms of educating a group of readers, MFA programs are very good. I just think the model of MFA programs in which a young poet goes through the program, publishes a series of books, gets teaching jobs, that's a bit at risk.

Edward Hirsch

#10. The very good thing about MFA programs is their democratizing. They bring a lot of different people to the table.

Edward Hirsch

#11. Inside every human is a story worth sharing. What's your story?

Lynda Cheldelin Fell

#12. I have done songs here and there. But I have never scored a film. That is something I would like to do at some point.

Harry Connick Jr.

#13. I think the MFA programs have had a real effect on the state of American fiction, but I don't think it's a question of "this is written by someone with an MFA, and this isn't." I challenge anyone to identify a book in that way. It's totally impossible.

Chad Harbach

#14. Breezy journalistic sentences about wealthy white people unaware that other human beings are real became the rubber stamp product of the elite MFA programs.

Sarah Schulman

#15. Genre/forms are institutional questions mainly. Like matter to MFA programs in terms of which workshop you can teach.

Juliana Spahr

#16. Reality moves unnoticeably in the alternatives space like the minute hand on a watch, but that does not mean it is not moving! That

Vadim Zeland

#17. I think that the dark side of MFA programs is that they're generating more poets than the culture can absorb and there are more people writing poetry than possibly read it or can certainly earn a living around it.

Edward Hirsch

#18. Sometimes there is more exploration in the character for a villain.

Chris Hemsworth

#19. The past is solid, the future is liquid.

Jean-Louis Aubert

#20. American actors are all muscular, tanned, white teeth and they have this indestructible confidence. We British are all ... Dare I say it? Pessimistic.

Max Irons

#21. There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor.

Elizabeth McCracken

#22. MFA programs are to the world of art what gentrification is to your neighborhood.

Sarah Schulman

#23. Our hearts have to cry to end our tears.

Neamat Imam