For two decades, I’ve maintained a list of quotes I like by poets, writers, and thinkers I find interesting. This post is part of that series. All posts in the series are organized alphabetically. Some poets and writers have their own dedicated pages.

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By arrogance I mean that when you are writing you must assume that the next thing you put down belongs not for reasons of logic, good sense, or narrative development, but because you put it there. — John Gallaher

It is impossible to write meaningless sequences. In a sense the next thing always belongs. In the world of imagination, all things belong. If you take that on faith, you may be foolish, but foolish like a trout. — John Gallaher

Time doesn’t know which genre this is, / so it’s using all of them. — John Gallaher

Like species, poems are not invented, but develop out of a kind of discourse, each poet tensed against another’s poetics, in conversation. — Forrest Gander

At least when placentas clap their / hands while we all play / patty cake, / they are not foreshadowing / the sins / of generations that / do nothing else but / feast upon weakness. — Robert Gano

Some people say I communicate exactly / like goose liver / force fed by / an invisible-handed economy — Robert Gano

I say moon is horses in the tempered dark, / because horse is the closest I can get to it. — Jack Gilbert

The heart / never fits / the journey. / Always / one ends / first. — Jack Gilbert

We stand / looking at the ruin of our garden / in early November. — Jack Gilbert

I’ll tell you / what I was meant to be— / a device that listened. — Louise Glück

When I’m quiet, that’s when the truth emerges. — Louise Glück

All I have to do after I have the vision is to find the language of music to describe what I have heard, which can take a certain amount of time. I’ve been working in the language of music all my life, and it’s within that language that I’ve learned how ideas can unfold. — Phillip Glass

The word “cancer” follows me. It is the scariest word / in the language, scarier somehow than even “death.” I am being / murdered by my own body. The sparrows go on chirping their / simple three-note song as if there is no extra time for complexity. — Howie Good

Winnowed, we are—the wind / in widdershins spin; the clock hiding / its souvenirs in a blue wound. — Jessica Goodfellow

Every landscape turns inside out / as we journey through. Shadows stretch but the stars / keep swallowing us. — Brent Goodman

a filigree of illusion against light / that like crab in sand disappears / into the dark heart of nowhere. — Uma Gowrishankar

Hollowing the walls that make my home, I build a scaffold to hold an empty space. Bricks crumble when intimacy pours through the hole like loosened cement. It’s time to leave the building that exists only in my heart and nowhere else. — Uma Gowrishankar

If gold coins are anathema for an ascetic, what about words / that like lust tangle thoughts? — Uma Gowrishankar

the darkness of the tree line broken / only by my brother, who runs to me / with a look of great hope / carrying the tiny blind unicorn / we, together, are meant to save — Andrew Grace

Nature is making and / Unmaking itself at once — Jason Gray

I’m just like all the rest. I’m in the WORLD THAT IS. — Spalding Gray

And sometimes a day like today is like / an empty room and this empty room / is a treasure. — Allison Grayhurst

The day is like / the day before / the worm arrived / in a jar at my doorstep. / Like before I took the worm in / and fed it lettuce leaves and fresh water. / Like before I had something to care for, / when loneliness was the largest difficulty around / and isolation pounded beneath my lids like / a cancer. — Allison Grayhurst

The day is tick tock and as slow as waiting / for that needed check to arrive. / I collect the noises from outside / but have nowhere to put them. I open my mouth, / but my voice has gone underground. — Allison Grayhurst

Trace my gender / back to its oldest root & you will find my father’s footprint / on my chest, sinking all the way down to my blood. — Torrin A. Greathouse

There was the voice in your head the first time / we came / I will die here / like a benediction, light as the first leaf / fall, and you unafraid. — Sam Green

Fish! Fish! White sun! Tell me we are one / and that it’s the others who scare me, / not you. — Linda Gregg

An illness weakens a handshake; an illness within a handshake; the handshake equals water. November will end soon, I don’t know who I’ll be in December, maybe afraid. — Dan Gutstein

Let me tell you: / God doesn’t give / you any favors / He doesn’t say / now you’ve seen / this bad thing / but tomorrow / you’ll see this good thing / and when you see it / you’ll be smiling — John Guzlowski

Words appear and I don’t question / why they are there. — John Guzlowski

You come back to the barn / where it all started / where God told you / not to eat the apple / and you find more apples. / And God comes in / And says what are you doing here? / I told you not to come. / And you say I’m just back. — John Guzlowski