A Quote by Edward Hirsch
The very good thing about MFA programs is their democratizing. They bring a lot of different people to the table.
Related Quotes
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.
My god, people are selling their work and people are reading it! The horror! That MFA programs have to advertise that they'll let you write YA or fantasy or what-have-you is just absurd, but we do, because the presumption is that they're closed to that sort of thing. You're offering an MFA in creative writing? Teach people how to write well, worry about that part, let the writers come up with the stories.
I think the MFA programs have had a real effect on the state of American fiction, but I don't think it's a question of "this is written by someone with an MFA, and this isn't." I challenge anyone to identify a book in that way. It's totally impossible.
I've spent a lot of time in my political life talking about why it matters to have women in the decision making, whether it's at the family table, whether it's in a board room, whether it's in the halls of Congress, whether it's in your community meeting. And it has to do with the fact that women's lives are different. You know? They're not better or worse than men's, but they are different and we bring that different perspective to whatever we do. And it's important to have that perspective at the table.
I've seen a lot of good things and a lot of the bad of what Hollywood can bring. At the end of the day, I've found that when you try and fit in, that's a way to go crazy; you kind of lose yourself. I'm sometimes the different one at the table, but I don't care.
I've always thought with relationships, that it's more about what you bring to the table than what you're going to get from it. It's very nice if you sit down and the cake appears. But if you go to the table expecting cake, then it's not so good.
For me, the only drag about the whole thing is that a lot of my childhood friends had to be relocated to the outskirts of New York because of the gentrification. But I think it's always a good thing when you bring people of all different backgrounds together, that's sort of what New York is.
Breezy journalistic sentences about wealthy white people unaware that other human beings are real became the rubber stamp product of the elite MFA programs.
This game in a lot of ways, isn't that complex. You bring energy to the table and you've got a chance. You bring fundamentals to the table and you've got a chance. It's not always about scheme and all that magic-behind-the-curtain stuff.
I don't know very much about, honestly, about the Middle East, and yet I've played a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures. The thing that I notice is that we're all - there is a core of humanity that travels right through every culture. And, after all, we're all from Africa originally.
I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs.
Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs.
Of course, when you're doing something that's unexpected, people are going to have a very specific point of view about it, but I think it's all good to have a healthy debate about who Hitchcock was and what that means to people. He means a lot of different things to a lot of different people because the films are so great. If the movies were not great, no one would be bothering to show any interest.
My fellow actors inspire me a lot and really good writing inspires me. And then trying to stick to the decision to only do something that I think will challenge me and that I, personally and very subjectively, I think is good not do something because I think it will bring me a lot of money or bring me a lot of awards. I've tried to very, very rigorously be highly subjective about what I do. And that's something that I think I have basically lived by.
The effects of MFA programs, and the rise of creative writing instruction more generally, are far more diffuse than people think. Even if you're a writer who has avoided institutions your whole life, you're still going to be reading a lot of writers who have MFAs, and are affiliated with universities.
It's good to bring a different feel to tennis, and that's what I feel like I bring. I bring a different feel, a different swagger to tennis. I'm very easygoing, and very nonchalant, it looks like, when I'm out there - I've got a little strut, and I like that.
Related Authors
Alexander Pope Quotes
English
Poet
Emily Dickinson Quotes
American
Poet
George Herbert Quotes
British
Poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
American
Poet
Homer Quotes
Greek
Poet
Horace Quotes
Roman
Poet
John Milton Quotes
English
Poet
Khalil Gibran Quotes
Lebanese
Poet
Lord Byron Quotes
British
Poet
Maya Angelou Quotes
American
Poet
Oscar Wilde Quotes
Irish
Poet
Ovid Quotes
Roman
Poet
T. S. Eliot Quotes
American
Poet
Walt Whitman Quotes
American
Poet
William Butler Yeats Quotes
Irish
Poet