Wallace Stevens Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The world about us would be desolate except for the world within us.

  Wallace Stevens

  Would Be, World, Desolate

  Wallace Stevens (1951). “The Relations Between Poetry and Painting”

  20 Copy quote

• Reality is not what it is. It consists of the many realities which it can be made into.

  Wallace Stevens

  Reality, Made

  7 Copy quote

• I was the world in which I walked.

  Wallace Stevens

  Journey, Hiking, World

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.90, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• Imagination applied to the whole world is vapid in comparison to imagination applied to a detail.

  Wallace Stevens

  Imagination, Vapid, Details

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.256, Vintage

  13 Copy quote

• It is the belief and not the god that counts.

  Wallace Stevens

  Belief

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.243, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• The great poems of heaven and hell have been written and the great poem of earth remains to be written.

  Wallace Stevens

  Heaven, Earth, Hell

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

  7 Copy quote

• A poet's words are of things that do not exist without the words.

  Wallace Stevens

  Poet

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination”, p.32, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates.

  Wallace Stevens

  Style

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.351, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• Anything is beautiful if you say it is.

  Wallace Stevens

  Beautiful, Ifs

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.213, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• Poetry increases the feeling for reality.

  Wallace Stevens

  Reality, Feelings, Increase

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.243, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• It is necessary to any originality to have the courage to be an amateur.

  Wallace Stevens

  Funny Basketball, Originality

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.250, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal and intensifies what is unreal, while its first effect may be extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect that it will ever have.

  Wallace Stevens

  Real, Imagination, Vitality

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination”, p.6, Vintage

  17 Copy quote

• Realism is a corruption of reality.

  Wallace Stevens

  Reality, Corruption, Realism

  10 Copy quote

• The poet's function is to make his imagination . . . become the light in the mind of others. His role, in short, is to help people to live their lives.

  Wallace Stevens

  Light, People, Imagination

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination”, p.29, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Time is a horse that runs in the heart, a horse
  Without a rider on a road at night.
  The mind sits listening and hears it pass.

  Wallace Stevens

  Running, Time, Horse

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.339, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Metaphor creates a new reality from which the original appears to be unreal.

  Wallace Stevens

  Reality, Metaphor, Unreal

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.250, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all.

  Wallace Stevens

  Love, Writing, Ideas

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.243, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• One must read poetry with one's nerves.

  Wallace Stevens

  Nerves

  4 Copy quote

• All of our ideas come from the natural world: trees equal umbrellas.

  Wallace Stevens

  Nature, Ideas, Tree

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

  5 Copy quote

• The imagination is man's power over nature.

  Wallace Stevens

  Men, Imagination, Creative

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.260, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Poetry is the statement of a relation between a man and the world

  Wallace Stevens

  Inspiration, Men, World

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

  4 Copy quote

• Next to love is the desire for love.

  Wallace Stevens

  Love Is, Desire, Next

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Selected Poems”, p.249, Knopf

  6 Copy quote

• The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception... If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, One poet would be enough... But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.

  Wallace Stevens

  Old Things, People, Life And Death

  6 Copy quote

• They said, 'You have a blue guitar, / You do not play things as they are.' / The man replied, 'Things as they are / Are changed upon the blue guitar.'

  Wallace Stevens

  Men, Play, Blue

  'The Man with the Blue Guitar' (1937)

  8 Copy quote

• I am what is around me.

  Wallace Stevens

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p.86, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

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