Marguerite Young Quotes & Sayings

Life has no beginning, middle or end. — Marguerite Young

I think most people don't like others who, without a voice of their own, emulate the other. I certainly don't want anybody just to pick up my thoughts and hand them back to me. — Marguerite Young

If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin. — Marguerite Young

There were also some cruel reviews by women, but the tone of the male reviewers, sometimes hysterical, was different. I have suffered, but I don't want to name names-but there have been men who have seemed to want to destroy me or my writing, men I don't even know. — Marguerite Young

Once when Newton was away from his astronomical laboratory, he had returned to find that his little poodle dog Diamond had torn into shreds and eaten up part of his map showing distant star points. Perhaps God was punishing him for his neglect of God. He had picked up his poodle from its basket and had brushed its curls with his loving hand as he- not shouting in anger- had whispered serenely, consolingly, "Ah, little Diamond! Diamond! Thou dost not know the harm which thou hast done." Some corner of the universe had been made into pulp. He had left it so. — Marguerite Young

The first money I ever had was when I received an award from the American Association of University Women. — Marguerite Young

When the dream came into being, I always pursued it. — Marguerite Young

Some of the poetic writers who insert passages of realism in their texts have no underlying philosophy to uphold them, and revert to realism. — Marguerite Young

I knew Anais Nin, who called me after I had been away for a few years. She was seeking help because at that time no one would give her a decent review. She was made fun of. — Marguerite Young

A lawyer I once knew told me of a strange case, a suffragette who had never married. After her death, he opened her trunk and discovered 50 wedding gowns. — Marguerite Young

I would say my theme has always been paradise lost, always the lost cause, the lost leader, the lost utopia. — Marguerite Young

I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am, more so, than by Eliot. Actually, I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons. — Marguerite Young

Forgive this breaking body as you forgive the star, the star whispering in the wind when the star is no more. Forgive this secret none can tell. None can tell and live. — Marguerite Young

Every heart is the other heart. Every soul is the other soul. Every face is the other face. The individual is the one illusion. — Marguerite Young

I would never write realistic prose. I don't like people who try to write in a poetic style, but in the course of their book abandon it for realism, and weave back and forth like drunkards between the surreal and the real. — Marguerite Young

When you have examined all the illusions of life and know that there isn't any reality, but you nevertheless go on, then you are a mature human being. You accept the idea that it is all mask and illusion and that people are in disguise. You see the crumbl — Marguerite Young

I don't believe there can be a poetic novel without political consciousness. I have a strong political conscience. — Marguerite Young

All the books I have written have been one book, from the beginning. — Marguerite Young

All my writing is about the recognition that there is no single reality. But the beauty of it is that you nevertheless go on, walking towards utopia, which may not exist, on a bridge which might end before you reach the other side. — Marguerite Young

I never fantasized or invented a thing, not one thing. I knew every single thing I ever wrote about. — Marguerite Young

I believe that all my work explores the human desire or obsession for utopias, and the structure of all my works is the search for utopias lost and rediscovered. — Marguerite Young

All creatures are flawed, but out of the flaw may come the universe. — Marguerite Young

I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night. — Marguerite Young

Is it experimental to have been influenced by the Bible? By Saint Augustine? — Marguerite Young

The first poem I ever wrote, about loss, when I was 5 years old, expressed the themes of everything I would ever write. — Marguerite Young

If you don't have obsessions, don't write. my characters are obsessed. — Marguerite Young

Don't blindly follow any leader. — Marguerite Young

If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss. — Marguerite Young

Twice in his life Eugene Victor Debs took the long leap to the Ultima Thule of prison, passing beyond the realm of the acceptable into the nonacceptable, from respectability into the criminal community of the monster who was an enemy to the people. — Marguerite Young

I am in love with whatever is eccentric, devious, strange, singular, unique, out of this world-and with life as an incalculable, a chaotic thing, meaningful above and beyond the necessary and elemental data of my subject. — Marguerite Young

She would hang a sign in the restaurant window--Owt to luntsch. Bee bak in a whale. For she could not spell either. — Marguerite Young

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent. — Marguerite Young

I think there is a rage against women. I've come to see that now although at the time I did not notice it. I was preoccupied with my teaching and my writing. — Marguerite Young

Dreiser ... I love ... and almost wouldn't speak to anyone who ever attacked him. — Marguerite Young

At the age of 18 all young poets are sure they will be dead at 21 - of old age. — Marguerite Young

He is but as the stubble of the field, and yet he has no beard. — Marguerite Young

I try to teach my students style, but always as a part of life, not as ornament. Style has to come out of communicating coherent thought, not in sticking little flowers on speeches. Style and substance and a sense of life are the things literature is composed of. One must use one's own personality in relationship to life and language, of course, and everyone has such a relationship. Some people find it, some don't find it, but it's there. — Marguerite Young

We live our fate before we realize exactly what it is. — Marguerite Young

I've been willing to go for years without publishing. That's been my career. — Marguerite Young

I never thought of myself as either a woman or a man. I thought of myself as a person who was born to a writer, who was doomed to be a writer. — Marguerite Young

If there is no certain reality, the idea of following a leader must be scrutinized. — Marguerite Young

A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow. — Marguerite Young

For all dead loves and all remembered things. I have travelled through many seas. — Marguerite Young

The bus-driver was whistling, perhaps in anticipation of his wife, who would be a woman with ample breasts, those of a realized maturity. It would be impossible that he did not have, from my point of view, a wife and children, indeed, a happiness such as I could not imagine to be real, even like some legend out of the golden ages. He had spoken numerous times during our journey of his old woman waiting, and he was going home. — Marguerite Young