Quotes from Louis Dudek

A good reputation is better than fame.

The best live among us in disguise.

Art is anything people do with distinction.

Imagination should be integrated with life, not turned into a separate activity, art, that monopolizes one's whole existence.

The residue of religion in my work appears as a modified transcendentalism, and the positivist scientific side of my thought appears as concreteness and realism. The effort to reconcile the two is at the core of all my poetry.

There are two kinds of people; those who are always well and those who are always sick. Most of the evils of the world come from the first sort and most of the achievement from the second.

Hatred isgeneralized, but love is for the particular.

There are two kinds of people: those who are always well and those who are always sick. Most of the evils of the world come from the first sort and most of the achievements from the second.

A critic at best is a waiter at the great table of literature.

What is forgiven is usually well remembered.

The philistine provides the best definition of art. Anything that makes him rage is first class.

In a poem, the words happen; they just come. I let them. Otherwise, I wouldn't write. To interfere with what is happening is to distort the poem. Just a very small degree of intelligence and supervision is necessary. Very tactful. Any revision later that violates the text as it came, that begins rewriting the words, is fake.

Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative.