Charles Wright Quotes

• The music of memory has its own pitch,/which not everyone hears.

  Charles Wright

  Memories

  Charles Wright (2014). “Buffalo Yoga: Poems”, p.52, Macmillan

  45 Copy quote

• It may not be written in any book, but it is written - You can't go back, you can't repeat the unrepeatable.

  Charles Wright

  Book, May, Repeats

  Charles Wright (2014). “Littlefoot: A Poem”, p.9, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

• If you want great tranquility/ It's hard work and a long walk

  Charles Wright

  Hard Work, Long Walks, Want

  Charles Wright (2014). “Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems”, p.34, Macmillan

  10 Copy quote

• How sweet the past is, no matter how wrong, or how sad.
  How sweet is yesterday's noise

  Charles Wright

  Sweet, Past, Yesterday

  Charles Wright (2014). “The World of the Ten Thousand Things: Poems 1980-1990”, p.43, Macmillan

  13 Copy quote

• I empty myself with light
  Until I become morning.

  Charles Wright

  Morning, Light, Empty

  7 Copy quote

• What makes us leave what we love best? What is it inside us that keeps erasing itself When we need it most, That sends us into uncertainty for its own sake And holds us flush there until we begin to love it And have to begin again? What is it within our own lives we decline to live Whenever we find it, making our days unendurable, And nights almost visionless? I still don't know yet, but I do it.

  Charles Wright

  Night, Needs, Sake

  11 Copy quote

• It’s up there, and you can see the front of it. But what it is isn’t what you’re looking at. It’s behind what you’re looking at.

  Charles Wright

  Behinds, Fronts

  16 Copy quote

• We've all led raucous lives, some of them inside, some of them out. But only the poem you leave behind is what's important. Everyone knows this. The voyage into the interior is all that matters, Whatever your ride. Sometimes I can't sit still for all the asininities I read. Give me the hummingbird, who has to eat sixty times His own weight a day just to stay alive. Now that's a life on the edge.

  Charles Wright

  Giving, Important, Alive

  13 Copy quote

• Some people have everything
  Other people don't
  But everything don't mean a thing
  If it ain't the thing you want

  Charles Wright

  Mean, People, Want

  11 Copy quote

• Everyone knows this.
  The voyage into the interior is all that matters,
  Whatever your ride.

  Charles Wright

  Matter, Voyages, Interiors

  Charles Wright (2014). “Littlefoot: A Poem”, p.80, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• The ache for anything is a thick dust in the heart.

  Charles Wright

  Heart, Dust, Ache

  Charles Wright (2014). “The World of the Ten Thousand Things: Poems 1980-1990”, p.95, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  8 Copy quote

• Poetry is the dark side of the moon.

  Charles Wright

  Dark, Moon, Sides

  10 Copy quote

• Our dreams are luminous, a cast fire upon the world. Morning arrives and that's it. Sunlight darkens the earth.

  Charles Wright

  Dream, Morning, Fire

  Charles Wright (2004). “Snake eyes”

  9 Copy quote

• All forms of landscape are autobiographical.

  Charles Wright

  Landscape, Form

  Charles Wright (2014). “Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems”, p.158, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• It's linkage I'm talking about, and harmonies and structures, And all the various things that lock our wrists to the past.

  Charles Wright

  Past, Talking, Locks

  Charles Wright (2014). “The World of the Ten Thousand Things: Poems 1980-1990”, p.79, Macmillan

  53 Copy quote

• Snub end of a dismal year,
  deep in the dwarf orchard,
  The sky with its undercoat of blackwash and point stars,
  I stand in the dark and answer to
  My life, this shirt I want to take off,
  which is on fire . . .

  Charles Wright

  Stars, Dark, Fire

  Charles Wright (2014). “Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems”, p.4, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• How many times can summer turn to fall in one life?

  Charles Wright

  Summer, Fall, Turns

  Charles Wright (2014). “Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems”, p.54, Macmillan

  5 Copy quote

• November’s a burn and an ache.

  Charles Wright

  November, Ache

  Charles Wright (2014). “Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems”, p.163, Macmillan

  5 Copy quote

• How many years have slipped through our hands?
At least as many as the constellations we still can identify.
The quarter moon, like a light skiff,
 floats out of the mist-remnants
Of last night’s hard rain.
It, too, will slip through our fingers
 with no ripple, without us in it.

  Charles Wright

  Rain, Moon, Night

  5 Copy quote

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