Marianne Moore Quotes

America where there
is the little old ramshackle victoria in the south,
where cigars are smoked on the street in the north;
where there are no proof-readers, no silkworms, no digressions;

the wild man's land; grassless, linksless, languageless country in
which letters are written
not in Spanish, not in Greek, not in Latin, not in shorthand,
but in plain American which cats and dogs can read!

The cure for loneliness is solitude.

It has memory's ear
that can hear without
having to hear.
Like the gyroscope's fall,
truly unequivocal
because trued by regnant certainty,

it is a power of
strong enchantment. It
is like the dove-
neck animated by
sun; it is memory's eye;
it's conscientious inconsistency.

Love, ah Love, when your slipknot's drawn, One can but say, "Farewell, good sense."

Blessed is the man who “takes the risk of a decision” — asks himself the question: “Would it solve the problem?
Is it right as I see it? Is it in the best interests of all?

When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do not admire what we cannot understand.

Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ...of the main strengths of each. Each is attentive to clues, each must narrow the choice, must strive for precision. As George Grosz says, “In art there is no place for gossip and but a small place for the satirist.” The objective is fertile procedure. Is it not? Jacob Bronowski says in The Saturday Evening Post that science is not a mere collection of discoveries, but that science is the process of discovering. In any case it’s not established once and for all; it’s evolving.

My father used to say "Superior people never make long visits."

He's not out
seeing a sight but the rock
crystal thing to see — the startling El Greco
brimming with inner light — that
covets nothing that it has let go. This then you may know
as the hero.

Whatever it is.. poem.. play, story..it must hold attention.

... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ...
... if you demand on one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

The heart that gives, gathers.

... we
do not admire what
we cannot understand.

A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.

BY DISPOSITION OF ANGELS
Messengers much like ourselves? Explain it.
Steadfastness the darkness makes explicit?
Something heard most clearly when not near it?
Above particularities,
these unparticularities praise cannot violate.
One has seen, in such steadiness never deflected,
how by darkness a star is perfected.
Star that does not ask me if I see it?
Fir that would not wish me to uproot it?
Speech that does not ask me if I hear it?
Mysteries expound mysteries.
Steadier than steady, star dazzling me, live and elate,
no need to say, how like some we have known; too like her,
too like him, and a-quiver forever.