It seems to me in the past it's been a good thing, as a writer, to have experiences I hadn't expected.

- Louise Gluck

What I responded to, on the page, was the way a poem could liberate, by means of a word's setting, through subtleties of timing, of pacing, that word's full and surprising range of meaning. It seemed to me that simple language best suited this enterprise.

- Louise Gluck

I preferred the simplest vocabulary.

- Louise Gluck

I don't live with earplugs. I don't like the spotlight - but I like overhearing conversations.

- Louise Gluck

I have no concern with widening audience.

- Louise Gluck

Toward his critics, the artist harbors a defensive ace: knowledge that the future will erase the present.

- Louise Gluck

We have a disturbing cultural appetite for novelty, and it seems to me wrong each new laureate should dislodge the ideas of his or her predecessor, especially when they're still unfolding.

- Louise Gluck