Hirsch Quotes & Sayings

You were stalwart. — Jeff Hirsch

In order to develop a pioneering missional spirit, a capacity for genuine ecclesial innovation, let along engender daring discipleship, we are going to need the capacity to take a courageous stand when and where necessary. — Alan Hirsch

Hirsch and Ford believe that we've 'demonstrated' enough. It's now time for 'doing.' This book shows how to be missional 'Right Here, Right Now.' — Leonard Sweet

There was never anything between us and there never will be. Don't waste any more time worrying about feelings that neither of us ever had. - Jake — Jeff Hirsch

The imagination is an organ of understanding. And the imagination needs all the faculties at hand, all the sensibility, all the conscious and unconscious intelligence it can galvanize to fulfill its luminous mission. — Edward Hirsch

I'm a very relentless individual and have a lot more insanity coming. — Alex Hirsch

Babies used to make me nervous, but these squirmy things are awesome once you've read the manual. — David Z. Hirsch

When I was a freshman in college I went to Grinnell College in Iowa. I brought my poems to my freshman humanities teacher whose name was Carol Parsinan, a wonderful teacher. And Carol did a really great thing for me. She taught me more than anyone. — Edward Hirsch

There's no such religious force in the West as powerful as consumerism. — Alan Hirsch

However important it is that love shall precede marriage, it is far more important that it shall continue after marriage. — Samson Raphael Hirsch

Ripe strawberries hung from the little plants, row after row. They gleamed like baubles, bright and red among the leaves, weighing down their stalks. — Odo Hirsch

He tried to escape he could not
Cut the binding cord of human love [ ... ]
Sweet venom
His arrivals were swift
And his departures sudden
I couldn't understand how
He lifted the shower door
Right off its hinges [ ... ]
Love you he coughed and kissed me
See you next week he was out
The door like a thousand other times [ ... ]
Most reckless of
reckless angels — Edward Hirsch

As long as I could hold a pencil, I was drawing and telling stories and making jokes. I've just been lucky that no one ever stopped me, and now I can do that for a living. — Alex Hirsch

A certain kind of poetry looks back at experience from an older perspective. — Edward Hirsch

I grew up in a middle-class house without books, without art. No one around me wrote poetry or even read it. — Edward Hirsch

Oh yeah, I'm the president of the lucky club. There are so many talented people who don't work. And the crop of young actors I'm surrounded by is incredible. When you have people like that around you it amps you up a little bit. Also, Emile Hirsch and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, or guys like Ryan Gosling. It's a really good crowd and I feel I'm coming up at a good time. But equally, there's a lot of good young actors who don't get to work who are more talented than I. I'm just lucky. — Shia Labeouf

But, the best times I have found, in my life, are late at night or early in the morning and I think it's because you're outside the social realm. — Edward Hirsch

A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action. — Edward Hirsch

There are many poets that use as my models. In my first book of poems, I had several for the "Sleepwalkers," I had several poems that were apprentice poems like this in which I take a walk with a poet who is no longer alive. — Edward Hirsch

Poetry takes place in time. It is a durational. Things take place in sequence. — Edward Hirsch

I didn't read poetry seriously until college, when I really began to devour it in a very intense way. I also discovered that a poet is a maker. Before that, I thought a poet was someone who wrote about his own experiences. — Edward Hirsch

I'm a very, very conservative driver. — Emile Hirsch

When we reduce Christianity to a negative system where fasting becomes more sacred than feasting, law wins out over grace, and correct theology becomes more important than divine encounter, we in effect become the modern-day Pharisees - whose ministry Jesus was set against. — Debra Hirsch

There is no road home. — Jeff Hirsch

I know what wanting and craving adventure feels like, I can really relate to that. — Emile Hirsch

And Mandelstam says a poet - you go down to the shore and you see an unlikely looking from a bottle from the past, you open it. Mandelstam says, "It's okay to do so. I'm not reading someone else's mail. It was addressed to whoever found it. I found it, therefore it's addressed to me." — Edward Hirsch

Depression is a feeling without a cause. Mourning has a cause. — Edward Hirsch

I don't have a set schedule to work on poetry at any given time, at the same time every day, but I do try to work on poetry every day and I do find some time every day that I can with some exceptions to work on poetry. — Edward Hirsch

We are perfectly designed to achieve what we are currently achieving. If Christianity is in decline, at least part of the issue goes to the contemporary way we live out faith in a watching world. — Alan Hirsch

We will be able to achieve a just and prosperous society only when our schools ensure that everyone commands enough shared background knowledge to be able to communicate effectively with everyone else. — Edward Hirsch

You're shadowed by your own dream, especially as you get older, of trying to create something that will last in poetry. And so, you're working on its behalf. — Edward Hirsch

A missional church is a church that must live the dialectic. It must stay in the journey. — Alan Hirsch

Whether we like it or not, we are all on a journey, a Quest if you will, every day of our lives, and the path we must take is full of perils, and our destiny can never be predicted in advance. — Alan Hirsch

He could never stand still but now
Something that had once been my son
Lay there restless spirit
Who left the house one rainy night
And never returned
Lost boy
Who will never be found again
Anywhere but eternity — Edward Hirsch

Heroes are important not only because they symbolize what we believe to be important, but because they also convey universal truths about personal self-discovery and self-transcendence, one's role in society, and the relation between the two. — Alan Hirsch

Poetry is a form of necessary speech ... I have sought to restore the aura of sacred practice that accompanies true poetic creation, to honor both the rational and the irrational elements of poetry. — Edward Hirsch

Above all, those to whom the care of young minds has been entrusted should see to it that they respect both the smallest and largest animals as beings which, like people, have been summoned to the joy of life ... — Samson Raphael Hirsch

All too often, parents and kids struggle to find an empathetic ear when confronting bullying situation; these escalate and too often result in marginalization, on top of what may well be a daily gauntlet of harassment and abuse that is fundamentally torture. — Lee Hirsch

I was surprised recently to find a book called "Poetry in Persons" that's coming out about visit to poets to a class that Pearl London gave. — Edward Hirsch

There's always some place to go. You don't need workshops, you don't need friends necessarily, you can be befriended by literature itself. — Edward Hirsch

As far as dieting and weight loss go, diet and exercise actually works. Lots of running and healthy eating. — Emile Hirsch

There's been no poet, no great poet in the history of poetry who hasn't also been a great reader of poetry. This is sometimes distressing to my students when I tell them this. — Edward Hirsch

Gravity Falls has transformed the children of America into an army of Dippers. I couldn't be more proud! — Alex Hirsch

I read a lot as a kid and in high school. — Edward Hirsch

The more the Jew is a Jew, the more universalist will his views and aspirations be, the less aloof will he be from anything that is noble and good, true and upright, in art or science, in culture or education; the more joyfully will he applaud whenever he sees truth and justice and peace and the ennoblement of man prevail and become dominant in human society. — Samson Raphael Hirsch

There's the brilliant audacity of youth that poets strike upon in their earliest work sometimes that they never can hit upon again. — Edward Hirsch

The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can. — Edward Hirsch

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

There's never been a culture without poetry in the history of the world. — Edward Hirsch

The mysterious thing about writing poetry is that when you're - when things are going poorly, when you're not thinking well, even making two sentences together is extremely hard and I just can't make the connections. — Edward Hirsch

And a lot of poetry is putting yourself back into the state of wonder that you have before things when you're a child. It's not only a joyous wonder, it's sometimes a grief stricken wonder. — Edward Hirsch

We will have to take risks, to chance failure, to be willing to walk away from the familiar paths that have brought us to this point. — Alan Hirsch

As I became a filmmaker and realized that I had a voice, who better to speak for than kids that are bullied? It's such a place where you feel like nobody is listening and you can't communicate what's happening. — Lee Hirsch

Especially these days where everything is so polite and so proper, I think that rites of passage are good. — Emile Hirsch

My cultural experiences were as important to my formation as many of the other things that happened to me. — Edward Hirsch

And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us. — Edward Hirsch

We live in a superficial, media-driven culture that often seems uncomfortable with true depths of feeling. Indeed, it seems as if our culture has become increasingly intolerant of that acute sorrow, that intense mental anguish and deep remorse which may be defined as grief. We want to medicate such sorrow away. We want to divide it into recognizable stages so that grief can be labeled, tamed, and put behind us. — Edward Hirsch

There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. But poetry always remembers that it has its origins in music. — Edward Hirsch

I have a lot of people in my life who are truly ridiculous characters, and they're very, very funny people, but they don't really try to be. They're not cracking jokes. — Emile Hirsch

The poet wants justice. And the poet wants art. In poetry we can't have one without the other. — Edward Hirsch

The sound is the key; audiences will accept visual discontinuity much more easily than they'll accept jumps in the sound. If the track makes sense, you can do almost anything visually. — Paul Hirsch

When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God's purposes in and through his people. — Alan Hirsch

I don't think you can read poetry while you're watching television very well. — Edward Hirsch

I have the idea that lyric poetry is a poetry that's driven by a sense of the presence of death. That there's something unbearable about the fact that we're going to die and that we can't stand it and I think you find that out in childhood and you don't really - at least I found it out in childhood and I found it hard to get over. — Edward Hirsch

So, the result though is by the time I've got something, it's been worked over so many times that although I do make changes as the end, often by the time I've gotten it, it's pretty much completed. — Edward Hirsch

Most actors are lucky to ever get a job, period. I never forget that, because I have so many actor friends in L.A., and most of us barely ever work. And those of us that do, it's still only 60 days out of the year that we're actually on camera. It's an absurdly low number. — Emile Hirsch

I try to be a man of mystery. I try to keep the various projects I'm up to as close to the vest as possible until it's time to reveal them. — Alex Hirsch

Language is an impure medium. Speech is public property and words are the soiled products, not of nature, but of society, which circulates and uses them for a thousand different ends. — Edward Hirsch

When I was young, I wrote everything, and I thought I would be an all around writer, that I would write everything. — Edward Hirsch

Our culture has become increasingly intolerant of that acute sorrow, that intense mental anguish and deep remorse which may be defined as grief. We want to medicate such sorrow away. — Edward Hirsch

The idea of how to read a poem is based on the idea that poetry needs you as a reader. That the experience of poetry, the meaning in poetry, is a kind of circuit that takes place between a poet, a poem and a reader, and that meaning doesn't exist or inhere in poems alone. — Edward Hirsch

Some people could say, "I'd like something that's super dramatic and miserable and made me cry and made me sad forever" but that's not my taste. — Alex Hirsch

Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself. — Edward Hirsch

I come from Chicago, and the landscape of the Midwest has always meant a great deal to me. — Edward Hirsch

Evangelism cant be our focus! We must not stop sharing the good news, but here's the deal, here's the wonderful thing, it gets done along the way as you do discipleship. Great commission is just about going to disciple the nations and you know what happens ... as you disciple them evangelism takes place, because it's done in the context of discipleship.
Here's the issue: We have to reframe evangelism within the context of discipleship — Alan Hirsch

Now, I do say, "It's possible. You might be the first. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the odds are very much against you." All great poets have been great readers and the way to learn your craft in poetry is by reading other poetry and by letting it guide you. — Edward Hirsch

Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones and then manage the resulting distress. — Alan Hirsch

A stress on the system and I think a painful thing for many young poets who are looking to find a life in poetry that they're not going to be able to find. — Edward Hirsch

I think I've always been half out of my shell and half in. Sometimes I can be extremely wild and sometimes I can be extremely shy. It just depends on the day. — Emile Hirsch

I walk with Federico Garcia Lorca around the Upper West Side in Manhattan because that was a neighborhood he lived in and I imagine walking around Paris with Cesar Vallejo, a great Peruvian poet who lived in Paris. And I kind of create the walk as a kind of drama of my apprenticeship. — Edward Hirsch

Writing poetry is such an intense experience that it helps to start the process in a casual or wayward frame of mind. — Edward Hirsch

I remember when I saw 'The Matrix' when I was 13, I saw it in the theaters, and I was so blown away by it. It was one of the most memorable experiences I definitely ever had in the theater. — Emile Hirsch

It was very, very challenging being on this thing called the gimbal. It would throw you around, give you whiplash, and they'd tie you down. — Emile Hirsch

Poetry takes courage because you have to face things and you try to articulate how you feel. — Edward Hirsch

The genres are widening. I don't think that there's as many limitations on the kinds of projects that actors can do as there once was. — Emile Hirsch

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

You can look at a finale as chance to make an impact or a statement, to shock people or shoot a big cannon and make a loud noise. — Alex Hirsch

But the standard churchy spirituality doesn't require any real action, courage, or sacrifice from its attendees. — Alan Hirsch

The concern about what's too violent or what's too scary is something that I just completely don't let enter into my creative process. I feel like, if I spend a lot of time trying to worry about whether it will appeal to everyone and who will like it and who won't, and I try to please everyone, I'll just spread myself too thin and lose my mind. — Alex Hirsch

During the years of struggling to make partner, he had sometimes entertained the comical notion that making partner would imbue him with new powers, like a budding superhero who had been bitten by a radioactive spider. It appeared that any superpowers he had gained did not include the ability to pick up women in bars. — Reece Hirsch

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

Think what you hope for is that at different times of your life you're able to write the poetry that reflects the moment that you're in on your own journey. — Edward Hirsch

How much cooler was Oz than seeing the little dude behind the curtain? — Emile Hirsch

When I got a lap dance, because I was 17, they had to put a massive pillow between me and the girl when she was grinding me. It was weird, yet pleasurable. — Emile Hirsch

The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading. — Edward Hirsch

The sense of flowing, which is so crucial to song, is also crucial to poetry. — Edward Hirsch

In terms of creative engagement, I just love being able to produce, produce, produce. You don't always get it perfect, but it has much more of an improvisational element, and you learn. — Alex Hirsch

A person who's only suffering can't write a poem. There are choices to be made, and you need to be objective. — Edward Hirsch

Building community for its own sake is like attending a cancer support group without having cancer. — Alan Hirsch

People always ask me about career choices, though it rarely ever seems like any kind of choice. It's just like, I really want to do something, this is what I can do, and that's it. I'm lucky to be doing this at all. — Emile Hirsch