John Berryman Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of John Berryman's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Poet John Berryman's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 30 quotes on this page collected since October 25, 1914! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
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  • These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand. They are only meant to terrify & comfort.

  • One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be.

  • Them lady poets must not marry, pal.

    Pals   Poet  
    John Berryman (2014). “His Toy, His Dream, His Rest”, p.187, Macmillan
  • This world is gradually becoming a place Where I do not care to be any more.

    World   Care   Becoming  
    John Berryman (2014). “The Dream Songs: Poems”, p.168, Macmillan
  • Ever to confess you're bored means you have no Inner Resources.

    Mean   Bored   Resources  
    77 Dream Songs (1964) no. 14
  • Praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.

    Vanity   Self   Blame  
  • I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature.

    John Berryman (2014). “77 Dream Songs: Poems”, p.16, Macmillan
  • We are using our own skins for wallpaper and we cannot win.

    Winning   Skins   Chaos  
    John Berryman (2014). “77 Dream Songs: Poems”, p.60, Macmillan
  • So if I were talking to a young writer, I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.

    Vanity   Self   Talking  
  • Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

    Boring  
    77 Dream Songs no. 14, l. 1 (1964)
  • I cry. Evil dissolves, & love, like foam; that love. Prattle of children powers me home, my heart claps like the swan's under a frenzy of who love me & who shine.

    Children   Home   Heart  
    "The Heart Is Strange: New Selected Poems".
  • Two daiquiris withdrew into a corner of a gorgeous room and one told the other a lie.

    Lying   Two   Rooms  
    John Berryman (2014). “The Dream Songs: Poems”, p.18, Macmillan
  • I can offer you only: this world like a knife

    Knives   World   Offers  
    John Berryman (2014). “The Heart Is Strange: New Selected Poems”, p.76, Macmillan
  • Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn

    Sea   Sky   Boredom  
    John Berryman (2014). “77 Dream Songs: Poems”, p.16, Macmillan
  • We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place.

  • I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats.

    Writing   Want   Yeats  
  • I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.

    Life   Wise   Mouths  
    John Berryman (2014). “The Dream Songs: Poems”, p.24, Macmillan
  • The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.

    Art   Lucky   Worst  
    1972 Interview in The Paris Review, winter issue.
  • Wishin' was dyin' but I gotta make it all this way to that bed on these feet.

    Feet   Bed   Way  
    John Berryman (2014). “The Dream Songs: Poems”, p.44, Macmillan
  • Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.

    Funny   Song   Drinking  
    1964 'Dream Song No.63'.
  • We must travel in the direction of our fear.

    "A Point of Age" l. 42 (1948)
  • You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.

  • Offering Dragons quarter is no good, they regrow all their parts and come on again. They have to be killed.

    Funny   Clever   Smart  
  • There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).

  • Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored means you have no inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

    Mother   Mean   Boys  
    John Berryman, “Dream Song 14: Life, Friends, Is Boring”
  • something has been said for sobriety but very little.

    Beer   Sobriety   Littles  
    John Berryman (2014). “77 Dream Songs: Poems”, p.64, Macmillan
  • I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.

    "EM Forster's work tailed off once he finally had sex. Better that than a life of despair" by Sam Leith, www.theguardian.com. June 13, 2010.
  • Literature bores me, especially great literature

    John Berryman (2014). “77 Dream Songs: Poems”, p.16, Macmillan
  • That is our ‘pointed task. Love & die.

    Tasks   Dies  
    John Berryman (2014). “77 Dream Songs: Poems”, p.40, Macmillan
  • I think that what happens in my poetic work in the future will depend on my being knocked in the face, and thrown flat, and given cancer, and all kinds of other things short of senile dementia.

    Cancer   Thinking   Faces  
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We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 30 quotes from the Poet John Berryman, starting from October 25, 1914! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!
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