Quotes from David Lehman

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.

Words have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbits and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.

How like a winter has been my hard spring away from you, my harp. --Psalm

When I had no money, and a great book came out, I couldn't get it. I had to wait. I love the idea that I have hardcover books here and at home that I haven't read yet. That's how I view that I'm rich. I have hardcover books I may never read.

We cannot read each other's hearts, and sadly, silence is its own pervasive pastime. We are disposed more to assuming masks than we are to revealing the tenderness and freight within that might transform the world. More than any other time in history it seems the man and woman standing in close proximity to each other in a subway car are as far away from each other as two galaxies.

When a woman loves a man, they have gone to swim naked in the stream on a glorious July day with the sound of the waterfall like a chuckle of water rushing over smooth rocks, and there is nothing alien in the universe…

Not every madman is an agent of the divine, Not all who pass are allowed to come through.

I shall head to my desk and write The sonnet that praises the antique pen Used to write out prophecies of today With you on my arm, unafraid.

Dorothy Parker who wrote witty stories, did not foresee that spectacles would be- come fashion accessories. "Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses." And today, in Washington Square Park I thought of her, Miss Parker, and what she might say assessing the spectacles of our day: "Even the nicest lasses Have tattoos on their asses.

the best poems are those in which the author avoids concealment and obfuscation, and the truth of that person, eccentric, vulnerable, and brilliant, bears itself out in a sound heretofore unheard.

If you're not paying for it through the health plan, you pay for it in the emergency room.

Obscurantism is the academic theorist's revenge on society for having consigned him or her to relative obscurity - a way of proclaiming one's superiority in the face of one's diminished influence.

Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.

The best song lyrics seem to me so artful, so brilliant, so warm and humorous, with both passion and wit, that my admiration is matched only by my envy.

If you have too good a time writing hostile reviews, you'll injure not only your sensibility but your soul.