Quotes from John Ciardi

The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.

Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.

The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it.

Let our love be like an arch- two weaknesses leaning together to form one strength.

The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.

Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.

Poetry lies its way to the truth.

Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!

A savage is simply a human organism that has not received enough news from the human race.

(Conviction) is possible only in a world more primitive than ours can be perceived to be. A man can achieve a simply gnomic conviction only by ignoring the radical describers of his environment, or by hating them, as convinced men have hated, say, Darwin and Freud, as agents of some devil.

There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.

Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.

I have one head that wants to be good, And one that wants to be bad. And always, as soon as I get up, One of my heads is sad.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.

You have to fall in love with hanging around words.

If a man means his writing seriously, he must mean to write well. But how can he write well until he learns to see what he has written badly. His progress toward good writing and his recognition of bad writing are bound to unfold at something like the same rate.

Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said: we're not free spenders- doesn't know our like.

Boys are the cash of war.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

Men marry what they need. I marry you.

It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.

Few pay attention to the histories and the root pictures words can release. These neglected qualities are there, however, and the poets have always found them a self-delighting source of excitement.

Good writing tends to present evidence rather than judgments. When the evidence is well presented, the reader's judgments will agree with those implicit in the writing. But nothing is more disastrous to the communication between writer and reader than a series of implicit judgments with which the reader cannot agree or which he finds to be simply silly or for which he is given no evidence he can respect.