Quotes by Poets - Page 320

Better is half a loaf than no bread.

I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.

Win or lose, good or bad, the experience will change you.

Seeking nothing, emulating nothing, breathing gently, he moved in an atmosphere of imperishable calm, impresihable light, inviolable peace.

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in faces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.

This dewdrop world Is but a dewdrop worldAnd yet —

An enlightened man had but one duty--to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led. The realization shook me profoundly, it was the fruit of this experience. I had often speculated with images of the future, dreamed of roles that I might be assigned, perhaps as poet or prophet or painter, or something similar. tAll that was futile. I did not exist to write poems, to preach or to paint, neither I nor anyone else. All of that was incidental. Each man had only one genuine vocation--to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal--that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny--not an arbitrary one--and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, aflight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness.

In this world we must help one another.

Our mistakes would not wish for anything more, if we could just stop giving birth to them.

One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words In Hope.In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?

How they madeout of shamelessness somethingbeautiful, for as long as they could.

The past is uselessto me now:an old suitcasewith mould in the lining,heavy even when empty.

The greatest single achievement of nature to date was surely the invention of the molecule DNA.

Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.

Many strokes though with a little axe Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.

Naked you are blue like the night in Cuba,you have vines and stars in your hair,

There is always somebody about to ruin your day, if not your life.

Writers are much better behaved nowadays, for a couple of reasons. Once upon a time nobody was thinking of a career, unless you lived in New York, so there wasn’t as much pressure to present a respectable exterior. And secondly, there was no social media. So if you were found face down on the floor – people did do that quite a bit; usually men, but not always – or fell through plate glass windows or got into scrapes, it became a rumour, and rumours are hard to pin down.

She that in life and love refuses me, In death and shame my partner she shall be.

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

Cats, no less liquid than their shadows,Offer no angles to the wind.They slip, diminished, neat, through loopholesLess than themselves.

Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.

For the fire consumes all but the arsonist.

Our big mistake was teaching them to read. We won't do that again.

the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, the foremost to defend.

Most people are afflicted with an inability to say what they see or think. They say there’s nothing more difficult than to define a spiral in words; they claim it is necessary to use the unliterary hand, twirling it in a steadily upward direction, so that human eyes will perceive the abstract figure immanent in wire spring and a certain type of staircase. But if we remember that to say is to renew, we will have no trouble defining a spiral; it’s a circle that rises without ever closing. I realize that most people would never dare to define it this way, for they suppose that defining is to say what others want us to say rather than what’s required for the definition. I’ll say it more accurately: a spiral is a potential circle that winds round as it rises, without ever completing itself. But no, the definition is still abstract. I’ll resort to the concrete, and all will become clear: a spiral is a snake without a snake, vertically wound around nothing. All literature is an attempt to make life real. All of us know, even when we act on what we don’t know, life is absolutely unreal in its directly real form; the country, the city and our ideas are absolutely fictitious things, the offspring of our complex sensation of our own selves. Impressions are incommunicable unless we make them literary. Children are particularly literary, for they say what they feel not what someone has taught them to feel. Once I heard a child, who wished to say that he was on the verge of tears, say not ‘I feel like crying’, which is what an adult, i.e., an idiot, would say but rather, ’ I feel like tears.’ And this phrase -so literary it would seem affected in a well-known poet, if he could ever invent it - decisively refers to the warm presence of tears about to burst from eyelids that feel the liquid bitterness. ‘I feel like tears’! The small child aptly defined his spiral. To say! To know how to say! To know how to exist via the written voice and the intellectual image! This is all that matters in life; the rest is men and women, imagined loves and factitious vanities, the wiles of our digestion and forgetfulness, people squirming- like worms when a rock is lifted - under the huge abstract boulder of the meaningless blue sky.

We outgrow love like other things and put it in a drawer, till it an antique fashion shows like costumes grandsires wore.

My whole desire is to burn myself away.

What is a Man without his heroic deeds?

Come to me.Why must you ruin this moment?You are burdened with thought.Burdened with the pastand expectations of the future.You are burdened with your self.Cast these aside by laughing at yourself.And love,for what more is there than to love me?Take me nowand let it be heaven for us.

One dream, will suffice a thousand nightmares.

Depression is real. It happens. We go through it. Hold onto yourself in those moments.

The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is!

Drinking Shirley Temple with my Mary Janes on, let's say that every possibility waits

May a man live well-, and long-enough, to leave many joyful widows behind him.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares, And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest, Where can we finde two better hemispheares Without sharpe North, without declining West? What ever dyes, was not mixt equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

The best fathers have the softest, sweetest hearts. In other words, great dads are real marshmallows.

Perhaps you'd like, you gentle fellow, To hear what I'm prepared to sayOn "kinfolk" and their implications?Well, here's my view of close relations:They're people whom we're bound to prize, To honor, love, and idolize,And following the old tradition,To visit come the Christmas feast, Or send a wish by mail at least;All other days they've our permission,To quite forget us if they please-So grant them, God, long life and ease!

Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same.

What is the spirit of Christmas, you ask?  Let me give you the answer in a true story...On a cold day in December, feeling especially warm in my heart for no other reason than it was the holiday season, I walked through the store sporting a big grin on my face.  Though most people were far too busy going about their business to notice me, one elderly gentleman in a wheelchair brought his eyes up to meet mine as we neared each other traveling opposite directions.  He slowed in passing just long enough to speak to me."Now that's a Christmas smile if I ever saw one," he said.My lips stretched to their limit in response, and I thanked him for the compliment.  Then we went our separate ways. But, as I thought about the man and how sweetly he'd touched me, I realized something simply wonderful!  In that brief, passing interaction we'd exchanged heartfelt gifts!And that, my friend, is the spirit of Christ~mas. 

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

I write fiction""What’s fiction?""Fiction is an improvement on life.

Misery is a river of tears that whispers my name in a constant hiss.

As a writer, you must truly possess a love for words.""Yes, that's right," I agreed."I've noticed that some authors favor particular words, making frequent use of them. Do you have a favorite?"I nodded assuredly and shared my answer. "BECAUSE."My interviewer looked surprised, as though he'd expected an impressive adjective or some rare verb. "That's your favorite word? Why?"I tried not to smirk. "Because.

I started to think about the abyss that separates the poet from the reader and the next thing I knew I was deeply depressed.

When patterns are broken new worlds emerge.

I'm always telling myself I don't have many feelings. Even when something does affect me I'm only moderately moved. I almost never cry. It's not that I'm stronger than the ones with teary eyes, I'm weaker. They have courage. When all you are is skin and bones, feelings are a brave thing. I'm more of a coward. The difference is minimal though, I just use my strength not to cry. When I do allow myself a feeling, I take the part that hurts and bandage it up with a story that doesn't cry, that doesn't dwell on homesickness.

Sarah...loved the way the light lit the silence first thing in the morning.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.To know the pain of too much tenderness.To be wounded by your own understanding of love;And to bleed willingly and joyfully.To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;To return home at eventide with gratitude;And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.

I used to think love was two people suckingon the same straw to see whose thirst was stronger,but then I whiffed the crushed walnuts of your nape,traced jackals in the snow-covered tombstones of your teeth.I used to think love was a non-stop saxophone soloin the lungs, till I hung with you like a pair of sneakersfrom a phone line, and you promised to always smellthe rose in my kerosene. I used to think love was terminalpelvic ballet, till you let me jog beside while you pedaledall over hell on the menstrual bicycle, your tongueripping through my prairie like a tornado of paper cuts.I used to think love was an old man smashing a mirrorover his knee, till you helped me carry the barbellof my spirit back up the stairs after my car pirouettedin the desert. You are my history book. I used to not believein fairy tales till I played the dunce in sheep’s clothingand felt how perfectly your foot fit in the glass slipperof my ass. But then duty wrapped its phone cordaround my ankle and yanked me across the continent.And now there are three thousand miles between the uand s in esophagus. And being without you is like standingat a cement-filled wall with a roll of Yugoslavian nickelsand making a wish. Some days I miss you so muchI’d jump off the roof of your office buildingjust to catch a glimpse of you on the way down. I wishwe could trade left eyeballs, so we could always seewhat the other sees. But you’re here, I’m there,and we have only words, a nightly phone call - one chanceto mix feelings into syllables and pour into the receiver,hope they don’t disassemble in that calculus of wire.And lately - with this whole war thing - the language machinesupporting it - I feel betrayed by the alphabet, like they’reinjecting strychnine into my vowels, infecting my consonants,naming attack helicopters after shattered Indian tribes:Apache, Blackhawk; and West Bank colonizers are settlers,so Sharon is Davey Crockett, and Arafat: Geronimo,and it’s the Wild West all over again. And I imagine Picassolooking in a mirror, decorating his face in war paint,washing his brushes in venom. And I think of Jeninin all that rubble, and I feel like a Cyclops with two eyes,like an anorexic with three mouths, like a scuba diverin quicksand, like a shark with plastic vampire teeth,like I’m the executioner’s fingernail trying to reasonwith the hand. And I don’t know how to speak lovewhen the heart is a busted cup filling with spit and paste,and the only sexual fantasy I have is bustinginto the Pentagon with a bazooka-sized pen and blowingopen the minds of generals. And I comfort myselfwith the thought that we’ll name our first child Jenin,and her middle name will be Terezin, and we’ll teach herhow to glow in the dark, and how to swallow firecrackers,and to never neglect the first straw; because no oneever talks about the first straw, it’s always the last strawthat gets all the attention, but by then it’s way too late.

Data that comes subliminally and is acted upon will look like luck or inspiration.

Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow.

we are houses eaten by rivers because we do not know their smell.

Every morningbefore the birds starttrilling me their stories,I give birth to a new lovethrough my same old heartwhen a lake’s placidityfinds life in the swans breathOnly for you...From the poem 'Only For You

The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.

It's not respectable,' she said. And when people say that, it's no useanyone's saying anything.

Collins and Morales represent a segment of society which, if attacked with the weapons society sanctions, one finds buffered by innumerable layers of law, bureaucracy, lies, evasions. They rest secure within their palaces, confident that they possess defenses against all possible attacks within the rules of the game, yet willing to violate those rules themselves. ... We both know that although it is not listed in the rules, a player can end the game by kicking over the board and throttling his opponent.

It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield

When the lyrical muse sings the creative pen dances.