Quotes from William Carlos Williams

A house is sometimes wine. It is sometimes more than a skin.

There is no thing that with a twist of the imagination cannot be something else. Porpoises risen in a green sea, the wind at nightfall bending the rose- red grasses and you- in your apron hurrying to catch- say it seems to you to be your son. How ridiculous! You will pass up into a cloud and look back at me, not count the scribbling foolish that put wings at your heels, at your knees.

You remember I had a strong inclination all my life to be a painter. Under different circumstances I would rather have been a painter than to bother with these god-damn words. I never actually thought of myself as a poet but I knew I had to be an artist in some way.

Do we not see that we are inarticulate? That is what defeats us. It is our inability to communicate to another how we are locked within ourselves, unable to say the simplest thing of importance to one another, any of us, even the most valuable, that makes our lives like those of a litter of kittens in a wood-pile.

If there is progress then there is a novel.

I have had my dream—like others— And it has come to nothing, so that I remain now carelessly With feet planted on the ground, And look up at the sky— Feeling my clothes about me, The weight of my body in my shoes, The rim of my hat, air passing in and out At my nose—and decide to dream no more.

Their story, yours, mine - it's what we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our stories and learn from them.

The Hurricane The tree lay down on the garage roof and stretched, You have your heaven, it said, go to it.

The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.

To hell with everything I myself have ever written.

The business of love is cruelty which, by our wills, we transform to live together.

Shoes twisted into incredible lilies.

Rot dead marigolds- an acre at a time! Gold are you?

You're a romanticist. What do you think a man is, a papaya? To digest your dinner? In pill form?

We laughed at the hollyhocks together and then I sprayed them with lye. Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks.

those who belong properly to books, and to whom books, perhaps, do not quite so properly belong.

Your thighs are apple trees. Your knees are the southern breeze.

Marriage So different, this man And this woman: A stream flowing In a field.

The pure products of America go crazy... ...[] No one to witness and adjust, no one to drive the car

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches- They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind- Now the grass, tomorrow the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf One by one objects are defined- It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance-Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken

Let the snake wait under his weed and the writing be of words, slow and quick, sharp to strike, quiet to wait, sleepless. --through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks.

A man is indeed a city, and for the poet there are no ideas but in things.

If you can bring nothing to this place but your carcass, keep out. (Dedication for a Plot of Ground)