Quotes from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I did not know him, I knew my idea
of him.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I did not deceive him, he did not deceive me,
I did not leave him, he did not leave me,
I freed him, he freed me.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“it is
forbidden to love where we are not loved”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“Some people think I should
be over my ex by now — maybe
I thought I might have been over him more
by now. Maybe I’m half over who he
was, but not who I thought he was, and not
over the wound, sudden deathblow
as if out of nowhere, though it came from the core
of our life together.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“each hour is a room of shame, and I am
swimming, swimming, holding my head up,
smiling, joking, ashamed, ashamed,
like being naked with the clothed, or being
a child, having to try to behave
while hating the terms of your life.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“If I could
choose, a place to die,”
it would never have been in your arms, old darling”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“He fell in love with her because I
didn't suit him anymore -
nor him, me, though I could not see it, but he
saw it for me.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“And you couldn’t say,
could you, that the touch you had from me
was other than the touch of one
who could love for life—whether we were suited
or not—for life, like a sentence. And now that I
consider, the touch that I had from you
became not the touch of the long view, but like the
tolerant willingness of one
who is passing through.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“as if languagelessness was a step up, in evolution, from the chatter of consciousness.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“There Was an Old Woman Called Nothing-at-All,
Who Lived in a Dwelling Exceedingly Small;
A Man Stretched His Mouth to the Utmost Extent,
And Down at One Gulp House and Old Woman Went.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“let’s part
equals, as we were in every bed, pure
equals of the earth”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I've said that he and I had been crazy
for each other. But maybe my ex and I were not
crazy for each other. Maybe we
were sane for each other, as if our desire
was almost not even personal -
it was personal, but that hardly mattered, since there
seemed to be no other woman
or man in the world.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

“I want to relearn the intervals, to
journey with a man among the thirds and fifths,
augumented, diminshed, with a light touch,
sforzando, rallentando, agitato, the usual
adores and dotes - and of course what I reaaly
want is some low notes.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems

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Popular quotes

“External explanations of black-white differences — discrimination or poverty, for example—seem to many to be more amenable to public policy than internal explanations such as culture. Those with this point of view tend to resist cultural explanations but there is yet another reason why some resist understanding the counterproductive effects of an anachronistic culture: Alternative explanations of economic and social lags provide a more satisfying ability to blame all such lags on the sins of others, such as racism or discrimination. Equally important, such external explanations require no painful internal changes in the black population but leave all changes to whites, who are seen as needing to be harangued, threatened, or otherwise forced to change.
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“I know what we have to do!” he said, extremely excited.
He pulled me into the living room, sat me down, and took my hands in his. Looking intensely into my eyes, he said, “Babe, we’ve got to have children.”
Wow, I thought, that must have been some fire.
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As with every good idea that came into his head, Steve wanted to act on it immediately. Just take it in stride, I said to myself. But he was so sincere. We’d talked about having children before, but for some reason it hit him that the time was now.
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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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