Quotes from Charles Simic

Time—the lizard in the sunlight. It doesn't move, but its eyes are wide open. They love to gaze into our faces and hearken to our discourse. It's because the very first men were lizards. If you don't believe me, go grab one by the tail and see it come right off.

Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.

He who cannot howl will not find his pack.

If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.

I left parts of myself everywhere, The way absent-minded people leave Gloves and umbrellas Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck

One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.

If the sky falls they shall have clouds for supper.

Silence is the only language god speaks.

Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.

For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas.

I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!

The stars know everything, So we try to read their minds. As distant as they are, We choose to whisper in their presence.

When people ask me how to find happiness in life I tell them, First learn how to cook.

The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.

Poetry is an orphan of silence.

Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket

Only poetry can measure the distance between ourselves and the Other.

There's a book called "A Dictionary of Angels." No one has opened it in fifty years, I know, because when I did, The covers creaked, the pages Crumbled. There I discovered The angels were once as plentiful As species of flies. The sky at dusk Used to be thick with them. You had to wave both arms Just to keep them away. Now the sun is shining Through the tall windows. The library is a quiet place. Angels and gods huddled In dark unopened books.

Making art in America is about saving one's soul.

While you sit Like a rain puddle in hell Knitting the socks Of your life.

Charles Simic, when asked what he thought of Slam Poetry events: "They are fun, but they have as much to do with poetry as Elvis Presley had to do with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk".

In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in the street.

When you play chess alone it's always your move.