John Ashbery Quotes
Top 59 wise famous quotes and sayings by John Ashbery
John Ashbery Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from John Ashbery on Wise Famous Quotes.
You have to try to imagine an ideal reader, who's neither stupid nor able to know what your thoughts are.
I don't want to read what is going to slide down easily; there has to be some crunch, a certain amount of resilience.
The music brought us what it seemed / We had long desired, but in a form / so rarefied there was no emptiness of sensation
I could have made a casserole out of these things, but you always say you like to know what you're eating.
The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes
I want a bedroom near the sky, an astrologer's cave
Where I can fashion eclogues that are chaste and grave.
Where I can fashion eclogues that are chaste and grave.
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea -
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea -
I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.
The sun fades like the spreading
Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight
Might be read as a warning to those desperate
For easy solutions.
Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight
Might be read as a warning to those desperate
For easy solutions.
Reading is a pleasure, but to finish reading, to come to the blank space at the end, is also a pleasure.
Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.
The soul is not a soul,
Has no secret, is small, and it fits
Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
Has no secret, is small, and it fits
Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
Walter Pater said that all the arts aspire to the condition of music, but I've always felt that music aspires to the condition of words.
There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.
I'm heading for a clean-named place
like Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get there
without help and nosy proclivities.
like Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get there
without help and nosy proclivities.
The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest?
You stupefied me. We waxed,
Carnivores, late and alight
In the beaded winter. All was ominous, luminous.
Carnivores, late and alight
In the beaded winter. All was ominous, luminous.
We live our lives, made up of a great quantity of / isolated instants / So as to be lost at the heart of a multitude of things.
Life is beautiful. He who reads that
As in the window of some distant, speeding train
Knows what he wants, and what will befall.
As in the window of some distant, speeding train
Knows what he wants, and what will befall.
Once a happy old man One can never change the core of things, and light burns you the harder for it.
Part of the strength of Pollock and Rothko's art, in fact, is this doubt as to whether art may be there at all.
This whole moment is the groin
Of a borborygmic giant who even now
Is rolling over on us in his sleep.
Of a borborygmic giant who even now
Is rolling over on us in his sleep.
Death is a new office building filled with modern furniture,
A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us.
A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us.
In the increasingly convincing darkness
The words become palpable, like a fruit
That is too beautiful to eat.
The words become palpable, like a fruit
That is too beautiful to eat.