John Ciardi Quotes

Quotes about:

• The day will happen whether or not you get up.

  John Ciardi

  Get Up, Happens, Taking Action

  47 Copy quote

• The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it.

  John Ciardi

  World, Classroom, Entrances

  16 Copy quote

• Men marry what they need. I marry you.

  John Ciardi

  Marriage, Men, Needs

  John Ciardi (1988). “Poems of Love and Marriage”, p.16, University of Arkansas Press

  26 Copy quote

• Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.

  John Ciardi

  Genius, Happened, Happens

  10 Copy quote

• There's nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.

  John Ciardi

  Drinking, Beer, Sobriety

  62 Copy quote

• Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor.

  John Ciardi

  Business, Sleep, Insomnia

  13 Copy quote

• A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.

  John Ciardi

  Change, Ideas, Growth

  12 Copy quote

• Let our love be like an arch- two weaknesses leaning together to form one strength.

  John Ciardi

  Love Is, Two, Together

  42 Copy quote

• Patience is the art of caring slowly.

  John Ciardi

  Patience, Art, Caring

  10 Copy quote

• If a man means his writing seriously, he must mean to write well. But how can he write well until he learns to see what he has written badly. His progress toward good writing and his recognition of bad writing are bound to unfold at something like the same rate.

  John Ciardi

  Writing, Mean, Men

  17 Copy quote

• Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.

  John Ciardi

  Love, Relationship, Romance

  16 Copy quote

• The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.

  John Ciardi

  Giving, Opinion, Honest

  John Ciardi (1963). “Dialogue with an audience”

  16 Copy quote

• A man is what he does with his attention and mine is not for sale.

  John Ciardi

  Men, Doe, Attention

  John Ciardi (1984). “Selected poems”, Univ of Arkansas Pr

  7 Copy quote

• The constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

  John Ciardi

  Funny, Umpires, America

  8 Copy quote

• A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.

  John Ciardi

  Inspirational, Education, Teenager

  11 Copy quote

• The public library is the most dangerous place in town

  John Ciardi

  Library, Towns, Dangerous

  7 Copy quote

• You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.

  John Ciardi

  Inspirational, Sarcastic, Children

  1962 In the Saturday Review, Fall issue.

  28 Copy quote

• At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected, I shall forgive last the delicately wounded who, having been slugged no harder than anyone else, never got up again, neither to fight back, nor to finger their jaws in painful admiration.

  John Ciardi

  Fighting, Forgiving, Next

  1959 'In Place of a Curse'.

  4 Copy quote

• Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

  John Ciardi

  Girl, Art, Sex

  13 Copy quote

• Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.

  John Ciardi

  Beer, Civilization, Alcohol

  18 Copy quote

• Spontaneous is what you get after the seventeenth draft.

  John Ciardi

  Writing, Spontaneous

  7 Copy quote

• Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!

  John Ciardi

  Fun, Games, Way

  Herbert Barrows, Gordon Norton Ray, John Ciardi (1959). “An Introduction to Literature: How does a poem mean? By J. Ciardi”

  12 Copy quote

• You have to fall in love with hanging around words.

  John Ciardi

  Falling In Love, Fall, Hanging Around

  11 Copy quote

• Poetry lies its way to the truth.

  John Ciardi

  Lying, Poetry, Way

  11 Copy quote

• Within a single scene, it seems to be unwise to have access to the inner reflections of more than one character. The reader generally needs a single character as the means of perception, as the character to whom the events are happening, as the character with whom he is to empathize in order to have the events of the writing happen to him.

  John Ciardi

  Writing, Character, Mean

  10 Copy quote

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