Katherine Anne Porter Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• Mexican writer and diplomat, "Pasado en claro" ("A Draft of Shadows") You learn something the day you die. You learn how to die.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Death, Mexican, Shadow

  6 Copy quote

• In this moment she felt that she had been robbed of an enormous number of valuable things, whether material or intangible: things lost or broken by her own fault, things she had forgotten and left in houses when she moved: books borrowed from her and not returned, journeys she had planned and had not made, words she had waited to hear spoken to her and had not heard, and the words she meant to answer with. . . .

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Book, Loss, Journey

  Katherine Anne Porter (2014). “Flowering Judas and Other Stories: A Library of America eBook Classic”, p.80, Library of America

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• I always write a story in one sitting.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Writing, Sitting, Stories

  Katherine Anne Porter, Joan Givner (1987). “Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations”, p.95, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• You are right, none of us live enough, and sometimes I think it is because we mistake hurrah and hullabaloo for experience, we get a sock in the eye and think it is a broken heart.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Mistake, Heart, Eye

  Katherine Anne Porter, Isabel Bayley (1994). “Letters of Katherine Anne Porter”, p.34, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• And yet, we know how fatal the pursuit of liveliness may be: it may result in ... tiresome acrobatics. ... Flashy effects distract the mind. They destroy their persuasiveness; you would not believe a man was very intent on ploughing a furrow if he carried a hoop with him and jumped through it at every other step. ... When virtuosity gets the upper hand of your theme, or is better than your idea, it is time to quit.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Believe, Men, Ideas

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• Could she fall so low? No, there were limits, and she believed she still knew where some of them were.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Fall, Limits, Lows

  Katherine Anne Porter (2015). “Ship of Fools: A Novel”, p.76, Open Road Media

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• I can pray better when I'm comfortable.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Praying, I Can, Comfortable

  Katherine Anne Porter, Joan Givner (1987). “Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations”, p.84, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Every young artist has to do it one way, his [or her] way, and the hell with patterns. Remember who you are and where you are and what you are doing.... And never take advice, including this.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Artist, Advice, Creative

  8 Copy quote

• Death always leaves one singer to mourn.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Death, Singers, Mourn

  Katherine Anne Porter (2008). “Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings”, p.386, Library of America

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• Nothing is mine, I have only nothing but it is enough, it is beautiful and it is all mine. Do I even walk about in my own skin or is it something I have borrowed to spare my modesty?

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Beautiful, Skins, Modesty

  Katherine Anne Porter (2014). “Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels: A Library of America eBook Classic”, p.125, Library of America

  7 Copy quote

• Religion put claws on Aunt Sally and gave her a post to whet them on.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Aunt, Claws, Posts

  Katherine Anne Porter (2014). “Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels: A Library of America eBook Classic”, p.26, Library of America

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• Even St. Teresa said, "I can pray better when I'm comfortable," and she refused to wear her haircloth shirt or starve herself. I don't think living in cellars and starving is better for an artist than it is for anybody else.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Artist, Thinking, Praying

  Katherine Anne Porter, Joan Givner (1987). “Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations”, p.84, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  7 Copy quote

• Your mind outwears all sorts of things you may set your heart upon; you can enjoy it when all other things are taken away.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Taken, Heart, Mind

  Katherine Anne Porter (2008). “Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings”, p.270, Library of America

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• Writing does not exclude the full life; it demands it.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Writing, Doe, Demand

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• They had both noticed that a life of dissipation sometimes gave to a face the look of gaunt suffering spirituality that a life of asceticism was supposed to give and quite often did not.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Giving, Suffering, Asceticism

  Katherine Anne Porter (2015). “Ship of Fools: A Novel”, p.359, Open Road Media

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• [On Gertrude Stein's Making of Americans:] I doubt if all the people who should read it will read it for a great while yet, for it is in such a limited edition, and reading it is anyhow a sort of permanent occupation.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Reading, People, Doubt

  Katherine Anne Porter (2008). “Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings”, p.663, Library of America

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• No man can be explained by his personal history, least of all a poet.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Men, Personal History, Poet

  Katherine Anne Porter (2008). “Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings”, p.781, Library of America

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• I look upon literature as an art, and I believe that if you misuse it or abuse it, it will leave you. It is not a thing that you can nail down and use as you want. You have to let it use you, too.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Art, Believe, Abuse

  Katherine Anne Porter, Joan Givner (1987). “Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations”, p.98, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• There are only a few bits of absolute knowledge in the world, people can learn only one or two fundamental facts about each other, the rest is decoration and prejudice.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Knowledge, Two, People

  Katherine Anne Porter (2008). “Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings”, p.667, Library of America

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• It is as hard to find a neutral critic as it is a neutral country in time of war. I suppose if a critic were neutral, he wouldn't trouble to write anything.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Country, War, Writing

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• With the most infinite tenderness I have ever known in my life, he put his arms around me, gently, gently, and I embraced him around the neck, and we touched.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Arms, Necks, Infinite

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• I don't believe in intuition. When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brain working faster than usual. But you've been getting ready to know it for a long time, and when it comes, you feel you've known it always.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Believe, Long, Perception

  Katherine Anne Porter, Joan Givner (1987). “Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations”, p.90, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I have no patience with this dreadful idea that whatever you have in you has to come out, that you can't suppress true talent. People can be destroyed; they can be bent, distorted, and completely crippled. In spite of all the poetry, all the philosophy to the contrary, we are not really masters of our fate.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Philosophy, Fate, Ideas

  "Silences". Book by Tillie Olsen, 2014.

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• I'm not afraid of life and I'm not afraid of death: Dying's the bore.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Dying, Afraid Of Life, Not Afraid

  The New York Times, April 03, 1970.

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• The human heart is not yet so corroded that it can read off the extinction of these two men without a shock to the very roots of its belief in justice and humanity.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Heart, Men, Two

  The Nation, August 31, 1927.

  4 Copy quote

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