Geoffrey Hill Quotes

Did Péguy kill Juarés? Did he incite

I have learned one thing: not to look down
Too much upon the damned.

In memory of those things these words were born.

I think art has a right—not an obligation—to be difficult if it wishes. And, since people generally go on from this to talk about elitism versus democracy, I would add that genuinely difficult art is truly democratic.

For this creating to take place (as it does from time to time) words have to be accepted as heirs of their forebears, as we are of ours. And in each case, what exists is often only a bankrupt inheritance; or the hinterlands of the unspoken.

I try to make a distinction between enjoyment and joy. You are only prepared to enjoy what you already have a taste for; wheras joy is shocking and surprising.

The years will not
answer for what they have done, that much is
certain. There is no shaking them, we
might have foreseen this but refused.

An achieved poem is always beautiful in its own way, though such a way will many times strike people as harsh and repellent.

Shakespeare
clearly heard many voices. No secret:
voicing means hearing, at a price a gift

I think men and women who write poetry or write music or paint are finally responsible for what they do. They are entitled to praise for any success they achieve and they should not complain of just criticism.

I write
to astonish myself

I think intelligence has a kind of range of sense and allows us to contemplate the coexistence of the conceptual aspect of thought and the emotional aspect of thought as ideally wedded, troth-plight, and the circumstances in which this troth-plight can be effected are to be found in the medium of language itself.

"One cannot lose what one has not possessed."
So much for that abrasive gem.
I can lose what I want. I want you.

We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We’re difficult to ourselves, we’re difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other.

September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.