Good Poems for Hard Times Quotes

“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.”
― Garrison Keillor, Good Poems for Hard Times

“I keep wanting to give you what is already yours”
― Various, Good Poems for Hard Times

“May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.”
― Various, Good Poems for Hard Times

“television is a product, not a medium, and everything you see and hear is produced by people terrified that they might be banished from the castle tomorrow and lose their limos and expense-account lunches and become peasants again, so there is mighty little courage or playfulness, as there is in poetry, which is entirely created by peasants, every word. Banishment is a way of life for poets, so what’s to be afraid of?”
― Various, Good Poems for Hard Times

“I fear a future in which America becomes a loose aggregate of marauding tribes—no binding traditions, no songs that we all know, not even “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “Silent Night,” no common heroes, no American literature—only the promotional lit of race and ethnicity, our people unable to name their senators, their only political experience via television, their only public life at Wal-Mart. There are no more TV shows that everyone knows: 10 percent of audience is a huge hit. The last singer recognizable to everyone was Frank Sinatra, the last poet known far and wide was Robert Frost. There are no replacements in sight. Today’s celebrities are people whom most Americans haven’t heard of.”
― Various, Good Poems for Hard Times