Quotes About Perception

Now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened.

I lived in the world of poetry and ideas. I thought life was all about art and philosophy. In the military, I suddenly found out about the real world.

Otherwise I don't read much adult poetry at all, because I'm not smart enough and mostly I don't get it.

My words are the garment of what I shall never be Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy.

Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they are.

Wordsworth went to the Lakes, but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.

Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.

An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .

Poetry is the capture of a picture, a song, or a flair, in a deliberate prism of words.

Fiction is in danger of becoming a kind of poetry. Only other poets read it. Only other fiction writers care about it.

Poetry relishes ripe fruit - but ripe is one thing and overripe quite another. That's something poetry doesn't like, so it couldn't care less if I were to fall overripe to the ground.

The poet is a pretender. / He pretends so completely, / that he even pretends that it is pain / the pain he really feels.

Then others for breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

I'm quite a softy, yes. I have a blank spot with respect to visual art, but I have perhaps a compensating hypersensitivity to poetry and music.

Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.

I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.

One must read poetry with one's nerves.

If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago He would've thought they were birds Or angels from another world Or messengers from other planets.

Beauty is a cheap word, but beauty remains priceless.

The moon people do not eat by swallowing food but by smelling it. Their money is poetry - actual poems, written out on pieces of paper whose value is determined by the worth of the poem itself.

In an endless silence even screams sound silent.

The demand that poetry be immediately understandable to everyone is truly absurd.

Poetry is the skin that I have between my body and the world's body.