Quotes from William Carlos Williams

Everyone in this life is defeated but a man, if he be a man, is not defeated.

Afraid lest he be caught up in a net of words, tripped up, bewildered and so defeated-thrown aside-a man hesitates to write down his innermost convictions.

Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to realise his wishes- Now that he can realise them, he must either change them or perish

THESE are the desolate, dark weeks when nature in its barrenness equals the stupidity of man. The year plunges into night and the heart plunges lower than night.

It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

beauty' is related not to 'loveliness' but to a state in which reality plays a part.

It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matters like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.

unsignificantlyoff the coastthere wasa splash quite unnoticedthis was Icarus drowning

What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise?

It's the anarchy of povertydelights me.

Old age isa flight of smallcheeping birdsskimmingbare treesabove a snow glaze.

[History is] a tyranny over the souls of the dead - and so the imagination of the living.

theseare the desolate, dark weekswhen nature in its barrennessequals the stupidity of man.The year plunges into nightand the heart plungeslower than night.

Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minutebrilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sailsthey glide to the wind tossing green waterfrom their sharp prows while over them the crew crawls.

I have discovered that most ofthe beauties of travel are due tothe strange hours we keep to see them.

No wreaths please—especially no hothouse flowers.Some common memento is better,something he prized and is known by:his old clothes—a few books perhaps.

In summer the songsings itselfabove the muffled words—

From the petal's edge a line startsthat being of steelinfinitely fine, infinitelyrigid penetratesthe Milky Waywithout contact—

What common language to unravel?

I have eatenthe plumsthat were inthe iceboxand whichyou were probablysavingfor breakfastForgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold

I walk back streetsadmiring the housesof the very poor.

The pure products of Americago crazy—

They enter the new world naked,cold, uncertain of allsave that they enter.