Quotes from Kelly Cherry

There is a wicked and pervading arrogance loose on the earth, like a rabid beast, an overdog. Does it run, does it slouch, does its name have a number? The beast preaches contempt, for that's what arrogance says: that nothing is real but itself, and the bone and blood of another's being are insubstantial as breath.

Poetry is a way of coming to know the realness of things; fiction is a way of coming to know the world of relationships; nonfiction is a way of coming to know the world of the mind.

I didn't find my story; it found me, as autobiography always does: finds you out in your deepest most private places.

The story of his great-grandfather . . . was his own story, too.

There is blood everywhere and I am lost in it. I breathe blood, not air.

I held you, or I never held you, or I held you briefly, once, long ago, and you kissed me while my heart kept time. — Kelly Cherry, from "First Marriage," When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women (Autumn House Press, 2008)