Quotes by John Ashbery
There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.
And we may be led, then, upward through more Powerful forms of poetry, past columns...
I remember meeting you in a dark dream Of April, you or some girl, The necklace of wishes alive and breathing around your throat.
... like a Wave on a beach, that thinks it's had this...
All of our lives is a rebus Of little wooden animals painted shy, Terrific colors, magnificent and horrible, Close together.
The light that was shadowed then Was seen to be our lives,...
Fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living. The night is cold and delicate and full of angels...
Another time I go outside Into the world. It rocks on and on. It was rocking before I saw it And is presumably doing so still.
For these are moments only, moments of insight, And there are reaches to be attained,...
So we may never Again feel fully confident of the stratagem that bore us...
With all of my power of living I am forced to lie on the floor.
And suddenly, to be dying Is not a little or mean or cheap thing, Only wearying, the heat unbearable ...
But it is the same thing we are all seeing, Our world. Go after it,...
For what Is remarkable about our chronic reverie (a watch...
We are happy in our way of life. It doesn't make much sense to others. We sit about, Read, and are restless.
And of the other things death is a new office building filled with modern furniture, A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us.
Extreme patience and persistence are required, Yet everybody succeeds at this before being handed...
And the serial continues: Pain, expiation, delight, more pain,...
