Katy Lederer Quotes & Sayings

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

I do think most poets are in denial about what the real taboos in writing are
the real boundaries. — Katy Lederer

To think of the myriad ways that we live is to think of the ways that we die: Delinquent in our brains, in debt
If we settle, then, our due account and walk through the forest, Will we finally be free? — Katy Lederer

We live in a capitalist system; anyone who believes they are above this system or purer than this system, even while shopping at the cute organic market across the street or taking a hiking vacation to Guatemala, is certifiable. — Katy Lederer

There is, in the heart, the hard-rendering profit. As if we were plucking the leaves from the trees. — Katy Lederer

I'm more interested in the writing than in the content per se (good writing can be about wallpaper and I'll devour it). — Katy Lederer

I remember when I was writing my memoir and I was worried about what other people would think when they read it, and my mother, who can be this incredibly wise person, said that it really didn't matter because strangers who read it would never meet me anyway, and people I knew were aware of my secrets. — Katy Lederer

When I moved to New York, the reputation just followed me, and I am regularly invited to play in home games, by writers in particular, though finance folk also invite me on occasion. — Katy Lederer

Poetry is God's work. — Katy Lederer

I do not play the instrument In longing but in quest Not to be undertaken Not to be lost In a forest of bliss. — Katy Lederer

It is bizarre that some people can't understand how a serious poet could work at a finance firm. Goethe was a bureaucrat. Eliot worked as a banker. — Katy Lederer

The sum of the parts equals less than the whole. Or the howl. Or the how. Or the hole. — Katy Lederer

What separates the professionally successful ... from all the rest is their ability to stay steady, to have stamina. It is one thing to write a good sentence, another to write a good book. — Katy Lederer

It should be everyone's right in a capitalist system to have some way to take advantage of compound interest. — Katy Lederer

Today, from the bridge, the East River is sparkling. The money is swirling around the tall buildings like tides or like tithes, And I wonder, does anyone swim in this river, I wonder, does anyone pray? — Katy Lederer

I think it is extremely interesting to think that, in some cases, vice might be, finally, more redemptive than virtue. — Katy Lederer