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Truly As The Sun Can Rot Or Mend, Love Can Make One Bestial Or Make A Beast A Man.

-Marianne Moore

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Truly As The Sun

Marianne Moore

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Truly As The Sun Can Rot Or Mend, Love Can Make One Bestial Or Make A Beast A Man.

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There Is No Pleasure Subtler Than The Sensation Of Being A Good Workman; And In Work There Is The Sense Of Consanguinity-unconscious As A Rule But Sometimes Conscious.

The Small Tuft Of Fronds Or Katydid Legs Above Each Eye, Still Numbering The Units In Each Group; The Shadbones Regularly Set About The Mouth, To Droop Or Rise

If You Will Tell Me Why The Fen Appears Impassable, I Then Will Tell You Why I Think That I Can Cross It If I Try.

Conscious Writing Can Be The Death Of Poetry.

When One Is Frank, One's Very Presence Is A Compliment.

We Are Suffering From Too Much Sarcasm.

In A Poem The Words Should Be As Pleasing To The Ear As The Meaning Is To The Mind.

The Self Does Not Realize Itself Most Fully When Self-realization Is Its Most Constant Aim.

Everything I Have Written Is The Result Of Reading Or Of Interest In People.

There Never Was A War That Was Not Inward; I Must Fight Till I Have Conquered In Myself What Causes War.

O To Be A Dragon, A Symbol Of The Power Of Heaven-of Silk-worm Size Or Immense; At Times Invisible. Felicitous Phenomenon!

We Don't Like Flowers That Do Not Wilt; They Must Die, And Nine She-camel Hairs Aid Memory.

The Deepest Feeling Always Shows Itself In Silence.

Any Writer Overwhelmingly Honest About Pleasing Himself Is Almost Sure To Please Others.

Pleasing Others

Poetry Is A Peerless Proficiency Of The Imagination.

The Cynics In Life Are The People Who Are Always Trying To Do Things For People Who Don't Want Things Done For Them.

The Passion For Setting People Right Is In Itself An Afflictive Disease.

Blessed The Geniuses Who Know / That Egomania Is Not A Duty.

Life Is Energy, And Energy Is Creativity. And Even When Individuals Pass On, The Energy Is Retained In The Work Of Art, Locked In It And Awaiting Release If Only Someone Will Take The Time And The Care To Unlock It.

The Heart That Gives, Gathers.

I Am Hard To Disgust, But A Pretentious Poet Can Do It

Omissions Are Not Accidents.

Not 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.

Poetry, That Is To Say The Poetic, Is A Primal Necessity.

One Writes Because One Has A Burning Desire To Objectify What It Is Indispensable To One's Happiness To Express.

Poetry ... ... A Place For The Genuine, Hands That Can Grasp, Eyes That Can Dilate, Hair That Can Rise

Writing Is An Undertaking For The Modest.

Hindered Characters / Seldom Have Mothers / In Irish Stories, But They All Have Grandmothers.

Truly As The Sun Can Rot Or Mend, Love Can Make One Bestial Or Make A Beast A Man.

Impatience Is The Mark Of Independence, Not Of Bondage.

Among Animals, One Has A Sense Of Humor. Humor Saves A Few Steps, It Saves Years.

Beauty Is Everlasting And Dust Is For A Time.

Does It Follow That Because There Are Poisonous Toadstools Which Resemble Mushrooms, Both Are Dangerous?

What I Write Could Only Be Called Poetry Because There Is No Other Category To Put It.

Of The Crow-blue Mussel Shells, One Keeps Adjusting The Ash Heaps; Opening And Shutting Itself Like An Injured Fan.

If Technique Is Of No Interest To A Writer, I Doubt That The Writer Is An Artist.

The Mind Is An Enchanting Thing.

I Never 'plan' A Stanza. Words Cluster Like Chromosomes, Determining The Procedure.

One Detects Creative Power By Its Capacity To Conquer One's Detachment.

It Is In General True That In Order To Create Works Of Art One Has To Have Leisure. On The Other Hand I Think That One Needs To Experience Resistance In A Practical Sense, And Even That Which Is Poignant To Bring Out What Makes Easy Reading For Others. Too Much Deprivation Of Course, Means Death.

As Contagion Of Sickness Makes Sickness, Contagion Of Trust Can Make Trust.

Superior People Never Make Long Visits.

There Never Was A War That Was Not Inward.

All Are / Naked, None Is Safe.

[the] Whirlwind Fife-and-drum Of The Storm Bends The Salt Marsh Grass, Disturbs Stars In The Sky And The Star On The Steeple; It Is A Privilege To See So Much Confusion.

When You Take My Time, You Take Something I Had Meant To Use.

Excess Is The Common Substitute For Energy.

In A Poem The Excitement Has To Maintain Itself. I Am Governed By The Pull Of The Sentence As The Pull Of A Fabric Is Governed By Gravity.

A Symbol From The First, Of Mastery, Experiments Such As Hippocrates Made And Substituted For Vague Speculation Stayed The Ravages Of Plague.

That Which Is Impossible To Force, It Is Impossible To Hinder.

Unconfusion Submits Its Confusion To Proof; It's Not A Herod's Oath That Cannot Change.

A Writer Is Unfair To Himself When He Is Unable To Be Hard On Himself.

A Man Is A Writer If All His Words Are Strung In Definite Sentence Sounds.

The Power Of The Visible Is The Invisible.

You Are Not Male Nor Female, But A Plan Deep-set Within The Heart Of Man.

Psychology, Which Explains Everything, Explains Nothing, And We Are Still In Doubt.

He Who Gives Quickly Gives Twice / In Nothing So Much As In A Letter.

Originality Is... A By-product Of Sincerity.

Poetry Is The Art Of Creating Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads.

I Wonder What Adam And Eve Think Of It By This Time.

The Hands Are The Heart's Messengers.

The Mind Is An Enchanting Thing Is An Enchanted Thing, Like The Glaze On A Katydid-wing Subdivided By Sun Till The Nettings Are Legion.

The Prey Of Fear, He, Always Curtailed, Extinguished, Thwarted By The Dusk, Work Partly Done, Says To The Alternating Blaze, "again The Sun! Anew Each Day; And New And New And New, That Comes Into And Steadies My Soul."

We Call Them The Brave Who Likely Were Reluctant To Be Brave.

At All Events There Is In Brooklyn Something That Makes Me Feel At Home.

The Ocean, Under The Pulsation Of Lighthouses And Noise Of Bell Buoys, Advances As Usual, Looking As If It Were Not That Ocean In Which Dropped Things Are Bound To Sink-- In Which If They Turn And Twist, It Is Neither With Volition Nor Consciousness.

The Weak Overcomes Its/ Menace, The Strong Over-/comes Itself.

One Must Be As Clear As One's Natural Reticence Allows One To Be.

What Is Our Innocence, What Is Our Guilt? All Are Naked, None Is Safe.

Your Thorns Are The Best Part Of You.

If We Can't Be Cordial To These Creatures' Fleece, I Think That We Deserve To Freeze.

Only Imagination That Towers Can Reproduce Evanescence And Render Rigidity Flexible.

The Sweet Air Coming Into Your House On A Fine Day, From Water Etched With Waves As Formal As The Scales On A Fish.

Egotism Is Usually Subversive Of Sagacity.

Wolf's Wool Is The Best Of Wool, / But It Cannot Be Sheared Because / The Wolf Will Not Comply.

Maine Should Be Pleased That Its Animal Is Not A Waverer, And Rather Than Fight, Lets The Primed Quill Fall. Shallow Oppressor, Intruder, Insister, You Have Found A Resister.

To Wear The Arctic Fox You Have To Kill It.

Below The Incandescent Stars / Below The Incandescent Fruit, / The Strange Experience Of Beauty; / Its Existence Is Too Much; / It Tears One To Pieces / And Each Fresh Wave Of Consciousness / Is Poison.

Sun And Moon And Day And Night And Man And Beast Each With A Splendor Which Man In All His Vileness Cannot Set Aside; Each With An Excellence!

The Sea Is A Collector, Quick To Return A Rapacious Look.

The Irish Say Your Trouble Is Their Trouble And Your Joy Their Joy? I Wish I Could Believe It; I Am Troubled, I'm Dissatisfied, I'm Irish.

Fanaticism? No. Writing Is Exciting And Baseball Is Like Writing. You Can Never Tell With Either How It Will Go.

Dürer Would Have Seen A Reason For Living In A Town Like This.

What Is There In Being Able To Say That One Has Dominated The Stream In An Attitude Of Self-defense; In Proving That One Has Had The Experience Of Carrying A Stick?

We Prove, We Do Not Explain, Our Birth.

Revision Is Its Own Reward.

[on Her Use Of Quotations:] When A Thing Has Been Said So Well That It Could Not Be Said Better, Why Paraphrase It? Hence My Writing, Is, If Not A Cabinet Of Fossils, A Kind Of Collection Of Flies In Amber.

So Wary As To Disappear For Centuries And Reappear But Never Caught, The Unicorn Has Been Preserved By An Unmatched Device Wrought Like The Work Of Expert Blacksmiths.

They Fought The Enemy, We Fight Fat Living And Self-pity. Shine, O Shine, Unfalsifying Sun, On This Sick Scene.

As For Butterflies, I Can Hardly Conceive Of One's Attending Upon You; But To Question The Congruence Of The Complement Is Vain, If It Exists.

... We Do Not Admire What We Cannot Understand.

I'm Troubled. I'm Dissatisfied. I'm Irish.

It Is Human Nature To Stand In The Middle Of A Thing.

My Father Used To Say, "superior People Never Make Long Visits, Have To Be Shown Longfellows Grave, Or The Glass Flowers At Harvard."

When One Cannot Appraise Out Of One's Own Experience, The Temptation To Blunder Is Minimized, But Even When One Can, Appraisal Seems Chiefly Useful As Appraisal Of The Appraiser.

Men Are Monopolists Of "stars, Garters, Buttons And Other Shining Baubles"- Unfit To Be The Guardians Of Another Person's Happiness.

When We Think We Don't Like Art It Is Because It Is Artificial Art.

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 Enslaver Is Enslaved, The Hater, Harmed.

Which Of Us Has Not Been Stunned By The Beauty Of An Animal's Skin Or Its Flexibility In Motion?

War Is Pillage Versus Resistance And If Illusions Of Magnitude Could Be Transmuted Into Ideals Of Magnanimity, Peace Might Be Realized.

Camels Are Snobbish And Sheep, Unintelligent; Water Buffaloes, Neurasthenic-- Even Murderous. Reindeer Seem Over-serious.

I Believe Verbal Felicity Is The Fruit Of Ardor, Of Diligence, And Of Refusing To Be False.

There Is A Great Amount Of Poetry In Unconscious Fastidiousness.

The Deft White-stockinged Dance In Thick-soled Shoes! Denmark's Sanctuaried Jews!

... 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.

Concurring Hands Divide Flax For Damask That When Bleached By Irish Weather Has The Silvered Chamois-leather Water-tightness Of A Skin.

You're Not Free Until You've Been Made Captive By Supreme Belief.

Repression, However, Is Not The Most Obvious Characteristic Of The Sea; The Sea Is A Collector, Quick To Return A Rapacious Look.

I See No Reason For Calling My Work Poetry Except That There Is No Other Category In Which To Put It.

We Are What We Were At Birth, And Each Trait Has Remained In Conformity With Earth's And With Heaven's Logic: Be The Devil's Tool, Resort To Black Magic, None Can Diverge From The Ends Which Heaven Foreordained.

Poetry Is All Nouns And Verbs.

Honesty - However Dangerous - Should Be As Valuable As Radium It Seems To Me.

Victory Won't Come To Me Unless I Go To It; A Grape Tendril Ties A Knot In Knots Till Knotted Thirty Times

Yule—yul Log For The Christmas-fire Tale-spinner—of Fairy Tales That Can Come True: Yul Brynner.

Assign Yogi Berra To Cape Canaveral; He Could Handle Any Missile.

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