Polar fleece is a plush, spongy, totally artificial material that weighs nothing and conveys no quality of warmth or coolness; in fact, you can wear it in the most bitter weather or in the hottest heat. Polar fleece looks neither flimsy and light nor hearty and warm. It has no historical, cultural, or physical association with a place, a season, a society, or any living thing. It is the first existential fabric - eminentaly useful, meaningless, dissociated and weird.
Mary Ruefle[On filling out a grant application:] I seek an extended period of time, free from all distractions, so that I might be free to be distracted.
Mary RuefleEvery creative act is an act of hypocrisy and violence. You may have to think about it for a while, but I am sure you can discover your own.
Mary RuefleThe origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the secret and keep it.
Mary Rueflein the beginning William Shakespeare was a baby, and knew absolutely nothing. He couldn't even speak.
Mary RuefleIn one sense, reading is a great waste of time. In another sense, it is a great extension of time, a way for one person to live a thousand and one lives in a single lifespan, to watch the great impersonal universe at work again and again That is why I read: I want everything to be okay. That’s why I read when I was a lonely kid and that’s why I read now that I’m a scared adult.
Mary Ruefle