Charles Simic Quotes
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We name one thing and then another. That’s how time enters poetry. Space, on the other hand, comes into being through the attention we pay to each word. The more intense our attention, the more space, and there’s a lot of space inside words.
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To submit to chance is to reveal the self and its obsessions.
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Poetry is an orphan of silence.
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The ambition of much of today's literary theory seems to be to find ways to read literature without imagination.
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For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas.
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Silence is the only language god speaks.
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The world is beautiful but not sayable. That's why we need art.
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When you play chess alone it's always your move.
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A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates.
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Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.
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I do believe that a poem needs to remind the reader of his or her own humanity, of what they are, of what they're capable of. Awaken them, in a sense, to the fact that there's a world in front of their eyes, that they have a body, they're going to die, the sky is beautiful, it's fun to be in a grassy field when the sun is shining—those kinds of things.
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A 'truth' detached and purified of pleasures of ordinary life is not worth a damn in my view. Every grand theory and noble sentiment ought to be first tested in the kitchen-and then in bed, of course.
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Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.
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I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
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There are people who live inside their heads and their intellects. It's something one is born with and stuck with. It's not something you make a decision about.
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The stars know everything, So we try to read their minds. As distant as they are, We choose to whisper in their presence.
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I left parts of myself everywhere, The way absent-minded people leave Gloves and umbrellas Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck
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The highest levels of consciousness are wordless.
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Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.
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Roberto Calasso's survey of the renewed interest in myth demonstrates how decisive the gods' influence was on modern literature. Calasso is not only immensely learned; he is one of the most original thinkers and writers we have today.
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A poem is an invitation to a voyage. As in life, we travel to see fresh sights.
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Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades (mass-produced items promoted into art objects, such as Duchamp's "Fountain"-urinal as sculpture) abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen.
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Only brooms Know the devil Still exists, That the snow grows whiter After a crow has flown over it
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I slept little, read a lot, and fell in love frequently.
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If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.
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Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
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Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator.
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I'm not a stickler for truth. To me, lying in poetry is much more fun. I'm against lying in life, in principle, in any other activity except poetry.
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There’s no preparation for poetry.
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The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.
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