Quotes from Karl Shapiro

Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique.

The good poet sticks to his real loves, to see within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

Self-knowledge is a dangerous thing, tending to make man shallow or insane.

Laughter and grief join hands. Always the heart Clumps in the breast with heavy stride; The face grows lined and wrinkled like a chart, The eyes bloodshot with tears and tide. Let the wind blow, for many a man shall die.

In the tight belly of the dead, Burrow with hungry head, And inlay maggots like a jewel.

The modern essay has regained a good deal of its literary status in our time, much to the credit of Joseph Epstein.

To make the child in your own image is a capital crime, for your image is not worth repeating. The child knows this and you know it. Consequently you hate each other.

Lastly, his tomb shall list and founder in the troughs of grass. And none shall speak his name.

But with exquisite breathing you smile, with satisfaction of love, And I touch you again as you tick in the silence and settle in sleep.

The body, what is it, Father, but a sign To love the force that grows us, to give back What in Thy palm is senselessness and mud?

Lawyers love paper. They eat, sleep and dream paper. They turn paper into gold, and their files are colorful and their language neoclassical and calli-graphically bewigged.

But with exquisite breathing you smile, with satisfaction of love, And I touch you again as you tick in the silence and settle in sleep.

One day beside some flowers near his noseHe will be thinking, When will I look at it?And pain, still in the middle distance, will replyAt what? and he will know it's gone,O where! and begin to tremble and cry.He will begin to cry as a child criesWhose puppy is mangled under a screaming wheel.

To hurt the Negro and avoid the JewIs the curriculum.

I am an atheist who says his prayers.

I didn't go to the funeral of poetry. I stayed home and watched it on television.

I have often thought that the Germans make the best Americans, though they certainly make the worst Germans.

The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

Every war is its own excuse. That's why they're all surrounded with ideals. That's why they're all crusades.

My soul is now her day, my day her night, So I lie down, and so I rise.

Already old, the question Who shall die? Becomes unspoken Who is innocent?

The doctor punched my vein, the captain called me Cain, upon my belly sat the sow of fear.