William Carlos Williams Quotes

Quotes about:

• It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.

  William Carlos Williams

  Lying, Secret, Age

  William Carlos Williams (1954). “Selected Essays”, New York, Random House

  86 Copy quote

• It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

  William Carlos Williams

  Men, Poetry, News

  "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" bk. 1, l. 317 (1955)

  93 Copy quote

• One thing I am convinced more and more is true, and that is this: The only way to be truly happy is to make others happy. When you realize that and take advantage of the fact, everything is made perfect.

  William Carlos Williams

  Optimistic, Make Others Happy, Perfect

  William Carlos Williams, John C. Thirlwall (1957). “The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams”, p.5, New Directions Publishing

  91 Copy quote

• Sometimes I find myself thinking, rather wistfully, about Lao Tzu's famous dictum: 'Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.' All around me I see something very different, let us say - a number of angry dwarfs trying to grill a whale.

  William Carlos Williams

  Thinking, Whales, Numbers

  90 Copy quote

• A new music is a new mind.

  William Carlos Williams

  Mind, Music Is, New Music

  4 Copy quote

• The job of the poet is to use language effectively, his own language, the only language which is to him authentic.

  William Carlos Williams

  Jobs, Use, Language

  "Modern American Poetry". Book by Louis Untermeyer, 1950.

  74 Copy quote

• Dissonance / (if you are interested) / leads to discovery.

  William Carlos Williams

  Discovery, Dissonance, Ifs

  William Carlos Williams (1995). “Paterson”, p.175, New Directions Publishing

  8 Copy quote

• First we have to see. Or first we have to be taught to see. We have to be taught to see here, because here is everywhere, related to everywhere else, and if we don't see, hear, taste, smell and feel in this place - not only will we never know anything but the world of sense will be by that much diminished everywhere.

  William Carlos Williams

  Smell, Taught, World

  Ian D. Copestake, William Carlos Williams (2004). “Rigor of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams”, p.179, Peter Lang

  33 Copy quote

• A poem is a small machine made out of words.

  William Carlos Williams

  Machines, Made

  36 Copy quote

• A new world is only a new mind.

  William Carlos Williams

  Responsibility, Mind, World

  William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.247, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• The weight of love Has buoyed me up Till my head Knocks against the sky.

  William Carlos Williams

  Love, Sky, Weight

  William Carlos Williams (1994). “Asphodel, that Greeny Flower & Other Love Poems”, p.4, New Directions Publishing

  71 Copy quote

• We sit and talk quietly, with long lapses of silence, and I am aware of the stream that has no language, coursing beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes, which has no speech.

  William Carlos Williams

  Eye, Long, Silence

  William Carlos Williams (1995). “Paterson”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

  49 Copy quote

• As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.

  William Carlos Williams

  Reality, Air, Birds Wings

  William Carlos Williams (1971). “Imaginations”, p.150, New Directions Publishing

  70 Copy quote

• The better work men do is always done under stress and at great personal cost.

  William Carlos Williams

  Business, Stress, Writing

  William Carlos Williams (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams”, p.188, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem.

  William Carlos Williams

  Pleasure, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• Unless there is a new mind there cannot be a new line, the old will go on repeating itself with recurring deadliness

  William Carlos Williams

  Mind, Goes On, Lines

  1948 Paterson, bk.2,'Sunday in the Park',1.

  9 Copy quote

• In summer, the song sings itself.

  William Carlos Williams

  Summer, Song, Nature

  William Carlos Williams (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams”, p.349, New Directions Publishing

  51 Copy quote

• What "love" is I don't know if it's not the response of our deepest natures to one another.

  William Carlos Williams

  Love, Response, Knows

  William Carlos Williams, John C. Thirlwall (1957). “The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

  15 Copy quote

• It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.

  William Carlos Williams

  Sweaters, Brown, Fairs

  William Carlos Williams, Macha Louis Rosenthal (1966). “The William Carlos Williams Reader”, p.105, New Directions Publishing

  66 Copy quote

• What power has love but forgiveness?

  William Carlos Williams

  Forgiveness, Power Of Forgiveness

  Oriole Farb Feshbach, William Carlos Williams (1991). “Illuminations: images by Oriole Farb Feshbach for the poem "Asphodel, that greeny flower" by William Carlos Williams”, Midmarch Arts Pr

  14 Copy quote

• The only realism in art is of the imagination.

  William Carlos Williams

  Art, Imagination, Realism

  William Carlos Williams (1971). “Imaginations”, p.15, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• I think these days when there is so little to believe in——when the old loyalties——God, country, and the hope of Heaven——aren't very real, we are more dependent than we should be on our friends. The only thing left to believe in——someone who seems beautiful.

  William Carlos Williams

  Beautiful, Loyalty, Country

  William Carlos Williams (1954). “Selected Essays”, New York, Random House

  23 Copy quote

• But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn't declaim or explain, it presents.

  William Carlos Williams

  Art, Poetry, Sensual

  32 Copy quote

• There is nothing beginning nor end to the imagination but it delights in its own seasons reversing the usual order at will.

  William Carlos Williams

  Order, Imagination, Usual

  William Carlos Williams (1971). “Imaginations”, p.35, New Directions Publishing

  64 Copy quote

• Love is unworldly and nothing comes of it but love.

  William Carlos Williams

  Love, Love Is

  William Carlos Williams (1994). “Asphodel, that Greeny Flower & Other Love Poems”, p.46, New Directions Publishing

  15 Copy quote

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