Quotes from John Ciardi

I hope the next time the young go out for an intellectual rebellion, they will think to try the library. It's still the most subversive building in town, and it's still human headquarters.

Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.

Three propositions of a survivor: That hell is a denial of the ordinary; that nothing lasts; that clean white paper waiting under a pen is the gift beyond history and hurt and heaven. (1959).

Art is the resonance of inseeing joy.

A carbonated wine foisted upon Americans (who else would drink it?) by winery ad agencies as a way of getting rid of inferior champagne by mixing it with inferior burgundy.

Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor.

Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old