Quotes from John Ashbery

Tomorrow would alter the sense of what had already been learned, That the learning process is extended in this way, so that from this standpoint None of us ever graduates from college, For time is an emulsion, and probably thinking not to grow up Is the brightest kind of maturity for us, right now at any rate.

Darkness fell like a wet sponge.

The horses Have each seen a share of the truth, though each thinks, "I'm a maverick. Nothing of this is happening to me

We never live long enough in our lives to know what today is like. — John Ashbery, from "The Improvement," And the Stars were Shining (Noonday Press, 1994)

There are good times in everybody's satchel, nor do we all get a free pass. That would be a split decision, as they call it. How else is the planned brotherhood to float forward?

I think my poems mean what they say, and whatever might be implicit within a particular passage, but there is no message, nothing I want to tell the world particularly except what I am thinking when I am writing.

You meant more than life to me. I lived through you not knowing, not knowing I was living.

Man dreams of putting penis between girl's boobs. Is all mankind diminished? Or strengthened? What do you want? I want a pair of orange pants and a pair of orange and white shoes to go with them. I know nothing will work out unless I get them, but I also know that if I do get them I probably won't wear them to a dogfight.

I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave all out would be another, and truer, way.

I am often asked why I write, and I don't know really—I just like it." —John Ashbery

There is no last page to the poetry of John Ashbery. You will have had the experience; you can always have it again.

Something Ought to be written about how this affects Something Ought to be written about how this affects You when you write poetry: The extreme austerity of an almost empty mind Colliding with the lush, Rousseau-like foliage of its desire to communicate Something between breaths, if only for the sake Of others and their desire to understand you and desert you For other centers of communication, so that understanding May begin, and in doing so be undone.

just as children imagine a prayer / is merely silence...

Each moment / of utterance is the true one; likewise none is true.

I've kept the jasmine and rotted horseflesh separate, knowing you'll do the honours. Destiny will greet us. After that you're on your own.

And time shall force a gift on each.

The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest?

To the poet as a basement quilt, but perhaps To some reader a latticework of regrets.

I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.

I feel that poetry is going on all the time inside, an underground stream.

Will occur as time grows more open about it.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.

What I like about music is its ability to be convincing, to carry an argument through successfully to the finish, though the terms of the argument remain unknown quantities.

Part of the strength of Pollock and Rothko's art, in fact, is this doubt as to whether art may be there at all.