James Schuyler Quotes

• I wish i could press snowflakes in a book like flowers.

  James Schuyler

  Flower, Book, Wish

  88 Copy quote

• Looking at the sky last night and the moon in the first fresh dark, just a few stars, bright with their cold flares, I had a little crumpled thought, 'Oh well, the moon. It's just another place like California.' One's imagination drags its feet as we are inexorably hauled into the future.

  James Schuyler

  Stars, Dark, Moon

  James Schuyler, Nathan Kernan (1997). “The diary of James Schuyler”, Black Sparrow Pr

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• Snow falling softly on lashes of eyes you love, and a cold cheek growing warm next to your own in hushed dark familial December.

  James Schuyler

  Fall, Eye, Dark

  James Schuyler (1969). “Freely Espousing: Poems”

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• In the past I have declined to comment on my own work: because, it seems to me, a poem is what it is; because a poem is itself a definition, and to try to redefine it is to be apt to falsify it; and because the author is the person least able to consider his work objectively

  James Schuyler

  Past, Trying, Able

  James Schuyler (2004). “Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991”

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• The aim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it's impossible to make something out of words and not communicate

  James Schuyler

  Artist, Talking, Firsts

  8 Copy quote

• However, if a poem can be reduced to a prose sentence, there can't be much to it.

  James Schuyler

  Poetry, Poetic, Prose

  James Schuyler (2004). “Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991”

  4 Copy quote

• It seems to me that readers sometimes make the genesis of a poem more mysterious than it is (by that I perhaps mean, think of it as something outside their own experience)

  James Schuyler

  Mean, Thinking, Mysterious

  James Schuyler (2004). “Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991”

  6 Copy quote

• A nothing day full of wild beauty .... Little fish stream by, a river in water.

  James Schuyler

  Wild Beauty, Rivers, Water

  James Schuyler (1972). “The Crystal Lithium-Pa”, Random House (NY)

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• It is always pleasant to learn that someone takes an interest in a work which one enjoyed writing

  James Schuyler

  Writing, Interest, Pleasant

  James Schuyler (2004). “Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991”

  4 Copy quote

• One tends to write beyond what's needed

  James Schuyler

  Writing, Needed

  James Schuyler (2004). “Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991”

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• What are the questions you wish to ask?

  James Schuyler

  Wish, Asks

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• I do not usually revise much, though I often cut, particularly the end or toward the end of a poem

  James Schuyler

  Cutting, Ends

  James Schuyler (2004). “Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991”

  7 Copy quote

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