Quotes from John Ashbery

Once a happy old man One can never change the core of things, and light burns you the harder for it.

So I cradle this average violin that knows Only forgotten showtunes, but argues The possibility of free declamation anchored To a dull refrain.

I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry.

I always thought that writing poetry was in itself a political act.

I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.

The first year was like icing. Then the cake started to show through …

I'm heading for a clean-named placelike Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get therewithout help and nosy proclivities.

The mind Is so hospitable, taking in everything Like boarders, and you don't see until It's all over how little there was to learn Once the stench of knowledge has dissipated.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

The ellipse is as aimless as that, Stretching invisibly into the future so as to reappear In our present. Its flexing is its account, Return to the point of no return.

Life is beautiful. He who reads that As in the window of some distant, speeding train Knows what he wants, and what will befall.

The sun fades like the spreading Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight Might be read as a warning to those desperate For easy solutions.

Life is not at all what you might think it to be A simple tale where each thing has its history It's much more than its scuffle and anything goes Both evil and good, subject to the same laws.

The soul is not a soul, Has no secret, is small, and it fits Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.

All beauty, resonance, integrity, Exist by deprivation or logic Of strange position.

Expecting rain, the profile of a day Wears its soul like a hat.

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night.

Extreme patience and persistence are required, Yet everybody succeeds at this before being handed The surprise box lunch of the rest of his life.

The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how...

And the truth is cold, as a giant's knee Will seem cold.

Death is a new office building filled with modern furniture, A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us.

After you've lived in Paris for a while, you don't want to live anywhere, including Paris.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

Much that is beautiful must be discarded So that we may resemble a taller Impression of ourselves.