Marianne Moore Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.

  Marianne Moore

  Artist, Doubt, Technique

  Marianne Moore (1958). “Idiosyncrasy & Technique”

  6 Copy quote

• Psychology, which explains everything,
  Explains nothing,
  And we are still in doubt.

  Marianne Moore

  Political, Psychology, Doubt

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.62, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• I'm troubled. I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish.

  Marianne Moore

  Dissatisfied, Nationalism

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.114, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

• Only imagination that towers can reproduce evanescence and render rigidity flexible.

  Marianne Moore

  Imagination, Towers, Evanescence

  Marianne Moore, Patricia C. Willis (1986). “The complete prose of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

  7 Copy quote

• The sweet air coming into your house on a fine day, from water etched with waves as formal as the scales on a fish.

  Marianne Moore

  Sweet, Air, Water

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.5, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.

  Marianne Moore

  Peace, War, Might

  Marianne Moore, Patricia C. Willis (1986). “The complete prose of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

  19 Copy quote

• Everything I have written is the result of reading or of interest in people.

  Marianne Moore

  Reading, People, Results

  "Marianne Moore, Poet of Affection". Book by Pamela White Hadas, p. 6, 1977.

  7 Copy quote

• ... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ... ... if you demand on one hand, the raw material of poetry in all its rawness and that which is on the other hand genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

  Marianne Moore

  Real, Garden, Hands

  Marianne Moore (2016). “Observations: Poems”, p.27, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• Unconfusion submits
  its confusion to proof; it's
  not a Herod's oath that cannot change.

  Marianne Moore

  Confusion, Proof, Herod

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.135, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• What is our innocence, What is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe.

  Marianne Moore

  Guilt, Naked, Safe

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.95, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• All are / naked, none is safe.

  Marianne Moore

  Naked, Safe, Vulnerability

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.95, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• Below the incandescent stars / below the incandescent fruit, / the strange experience of beauty; / its existence is too much; / it tears one to pieces / and each fresh wave of consciousness / is poison.

  Marianne Moore

  Beauty, Stars, Tears

  Marianne Moore (2016). “Observations: Poems”, p.76, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Which of us has not been stunned by the beauty of an animal's skin or its flexibility in motion?

  Marianne Moore

  Animal, Skins, Welfare

  8 Copy quote

• Poetry
  ...
  ... a place for the genuine,
  Hands that can grasp, eyes
  that can dilate, hair that can rise

  Marianne Moore

  Eye, Hair, Hands

  Marianne Moore, Robin G. Schulze (2002). “Becoming Marianne Moore: The Early Poems, 1907-1924”, p.205, Univ of California Press

  6 Copy quote

• It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing.

  Marianne Moore

  Human Nature, Indecision, Middle

  Marianne Moore, Robin G. Schulze (2002). “Becoming Marianne Moore: The Early Poems, 1907-1924”, p.102, Univ of California Press

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• It is in general true that in order to create works of art one has to have leisure. On the other hand I think that one needs to experience resistance in a practical sense, and even that which is poignant to bring out what makes easy reading for others. Too much deprivation of course, means death.

  Marianne Moore

  Art, Reading, Mean

  Marianne Moore (1997). “The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore”, Alfred A. Knopf

  6 Copy quote

• Poetry is all nouns and verbs.

  Marianne Moore

  Poetry, Verbs, Nouns

  7 Copy quote

• [On her use of quotations:] When a thing has been said so well that it could not be said better, why paraphrase it? Hence my writing, is, if not a cabinet of fossils, a kind of collection of flies in amber.

  Marianne Moore

  Writing, Amber, Use

  4 Copy quote

• Camels are snobbish
  and sheep, unintelligent; water buffaloes, neurasthenic--
  even murderous.
  Reindeer seem over-serious.

  Marianne Moore

  Sheep, Water, Camels

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.194, Penguin

  37 Copy quote

• So wary as to disappear for centuries and reappear but never caught, the unicorn has been preserved by an unmatched device wrought like the work of expert blacksmiths.

  Marianne Moore

  Experts, Unicorn, Disappear

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.78, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Not till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"-above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." shall we have it.

  Marianne Moore

  Real, Garden, Imagination

  'Poetry' (1935)

  7 Copy quote

• We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic: Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic, None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.

  Marianne Moore

  Heaven, Black, Magic

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.260, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• We prove, we do not explain, our birth.

  Marianne Moore

  Birth, Prove

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.80, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• We are suffering from too much sarcasm.

  Marianne Moore

  Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Suffering

  Marianne Moore, Patricia C. Willis (1986). “The complete prose of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

  7 Copy quote

• repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the
  sea;
  the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.

  Marianne Moore

  Sea, Looks, Return

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.49, Penguin

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