Marianne Moore Quotes

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.

When one is frank, one's very presence is a compliment.

"...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination" — above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we have it."

Hate-hardened heart, O heart of iron, iron is iron till it is rust. There never was a war that was not inward;

"An Egyptian Pulled Glass Bottle In The Shape Of A Fish"

Here we have thirst
and patience, from the first,
and art, as in a wave held up for us to see
in its essential perpendicularity;

Not brittle but
intense — the spectrum, that
spectacular and humble animal the fish,
whose scales turn aside the sun's sword with their polish.

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.

Psychology which explains everything, explains nothing.

And whence is courage: the unanswered question, the resolute doubt, — dumbly calling, deafly listening — that in misfortune, even death, encourages others and in its defeat, stirs the soul to be strong?

repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of
the sea;
the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.

I, too, dislike it.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
it, after all, a place for the genuine.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.

"As for "A Grave," it has a significance apart from the literal origin, which was a man who
placed himself between my mother and me, and the surf we were watching from the
middle ledge of rocks on Monhegan Island [in Maine] after the storm. ("Don't be
annoyed," my mother said. "It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing.")"

So he who strongly feels, behaves.

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?

Who rides on a tiger can never dismount; asleep on an elephant, that is repose.