Famous Quotes by John Ashbery
- I lost my ridiculous accent without acquiring another More
- You have original artworks hanging on the walls oh I said edit More
- What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich? More
- You hold me up to the light in a way
I should never have expected, or suspected,... More
- I prefer “you” in the plural, I want “you,”
You must come to me, all golden and... More
- The boy seemed to have fallen
From shelf to shelf of someone’s rage. More
- No one could begin to mop up this particular mess.
Thunder lay down in the heart.
“My... More
- These wonderful things
Were planted on the surface of a round mind that was to become our... More
- And the truth is cold, as a giant’s knee
Will seem cold. More
- Once a happy old man
One can never change the core of things, and light burns you the harder... More
- Everything is being blown away;
A little horse trots with a letter in its mouth, which is... More
- And of the other things death is a new office building filled with modern furniture,
A wise... More
- Man is never without woman, the neuter sex
Casting up her equations, looks to her lord for... More
- He gathers deeds
In the pure air, the agent
Of their factual excesses. More
- her patience,
The imperative Become, trembles
Where hands have been before. More
- The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to... More
- Where then shall hope and fear their objects find? More
- The distant box is open. A sound of grain
Poured over the floor in some eagerness we
Rise... More
- With all of my power of living
I am forced to lie on the floor. More
- Playing alone, I found the wall.
One side was gray, the other an indelible gray.
The two... More
- There are no other questions than these,
Half squashed in mud, emerging out of the... More
- A coma that is a white, interesting country ... More
- You can’t say it that way any more.
Bothered about beauty you have to
Come out into the... More
- Something
Ought to be written about how this affects
You when you write poetry:
The... More
- We must rest here, for this is where the teacher comes.
On his desk stands a vase of tears. More
- And so they have left us feeling tired and old.
They never cared for school anyway.
And... More
- And no one, it seemed, had had the presence of mind
To initiate proceedings or stop the... More
- It was a conspiracy
Of right-handed notions. More
- And a sigh heaves from all the small things on earth,
The books, the papers, the old garters... More
- The light that was shadowed then
Was seen to be our lives,
Everything about us that love... More
- And you teetered on the edge of this
Calm street with its sidewalks, its traffic,
As... More
- the gap of today filling itself
as emptiness is distributed
in the idea of what time it... More
- it is finally as though that thing of monstrous interest
were happening in the sky
but... More
- Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,
At incredible speed, traveling day and... More
- Is it enough
That the dish of milk is set out at night,
That we think of him... More
- But it is the same thing we are all seeing,
Our world. Go after it,
Go get it boy, says... More
- Yet the landscape, those billboards, age as rapidly as before. More
- I shall return in the dark and be seen,
Be led to my own room by well-intentioned... More
- So, laying his cheek against the dresser’s wooden one,
He died making up stories, the... More
- In the haunted house no quarter is given: in that respect
It’s very much business as usual.... More
- One idea is enough to organize a life and project it
Into unusual but viable forms, but many... More
- But there are no fractions, the world is an integer
Like us, and like us it can neither stand... More
- The past absconds
With our fortunes just as we were rounding a major
Bend in the swollen... More
- And we can get back to that raw state
Of feeling, so long deemed
Inconsequential and... More
- Not until it starts to stink does the inevitable happen. More
- And though that other question that I asked and can’t
Remember any more is going to move... More
- Always, a few errands
Summon us periodically from the room of our forethought
And that is... More
- Headhunters and jackals mingle with the viburnum
And hollyhocks outside.... More
- But always and sometimes questioning the old modes
And the new wondering, the poem, growing... More
- You turn
To speak to someone beside the dock and the lighthouse
Shines like garnets. It... More
- Under and around the quick background,
Surface is improvisation. More
- Long ago was the then beginning to seem like now
As now is but the setting out on a new but... More
- The things that were coming to be talked about
Have come and gone and are still... More
- And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in... More
- The disquieting muses again: what are “leftovers”? More
- Such simple things,
And we make of them something so complex it defeats us,
Almost. Why... More
- It is because everything is relative
That we shall never see in that sphere of pure wisdom... More
- A moment that gave not only itself, but
Also the means of keeping it, of not turning to... More
- It’s this crazy weather we’ve been having:
Falling forward one minute, lying down the... More
- The rare,
Uninteresting specimen might still be putting out shoots, for all we know. More
- The sky calls
To the deaf earth. The proverbial disarray
Of morning corrects itself as... More
- Therefore bivouac we
On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by
Veiled scruples, worn... More
- This whole moment is the groin
Of a borborygmic giant who even now
Is rolling over on us... More
- He promised he’d get me out of this one,
That mean old cartoonist, but just look what... More
- Such moments as we prized in life:
The promise of a new day, living with lots of... More
- And the serial continues:
Pain, expiation, delight, more pain,
A frieze that lengthens... More
- There is every reason to rejoice with those self-styled prophets of commercial disaster, those... More
- We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That ostracism, both political and moral,... More
- You stupefied me. We waxed,
Carnivores, late and alight
In the beaded winter. All was... More
- A wish
Refines the lines around the mouth
At these ten-year intervals. More
- The first of the undecoded messages read: “Popeye sits in thunder,
Unthought of. From that... More
- “Popeye, forced as you know to flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of... More
- If only the phantom would stop reappearing!
Business, if you wanted to know, was punk at the... More
- In the wings the tenor hungers
For the heroine’s convulsive kiss, and Faust
Moves... More
- So that the old joy, modest as cake, as wine and friendship
Will stay with us at the last,... More
- How many facts we have fallen through
And still the old façade glimmers there,
A mirage,... More
- ... the first step of the terrible journey toward feeling somebody should act, that ends in utter... More
- I say this because there is an uneasiness in things just now. Waiting for something to be over... More
- Why must it always end this way?
A dais with woman reading, with the ruckus of her... More
- The shadow of the Venetian blind on the painted wall,
Shadows of the snake-plant and cacti,... More
- Another time I go outside
Into the world. It rocks on and on.
It was rocking before I saw... More
- No one makes mistakes. No one runs away
Any more. I bite my lip and
Turn to you. Maybe... More
- Expecting rain, the profile of a day
Wears its soul like a hat.... More
- And so we turn the page over
To think of starting. This is all there is. More
- That which is given to see
At any moment is the residue, shadowed
In gold or emerging... More
- Rivers of wings surround us and vast tribulation. More
- The bear
Drops dead in sight of the window. More
- But I was trying to tell you about a strange thing
That happened to me, but this is no way to... More
- What precisely is it
About the time of day it is, the weather, that causes people to note it... More
- The dog barks, the caravan passes on.
The words had a sort of bloom on them
But were... More
- So this tangle of impossible resolutions and irresolutions:
The desire to have fun, to make... More
- It seems only yesterday that we saw
The movie with the cows in it
And turned to one at... More
- All things seem mention of themselves
And the names which stem from them branch out to other... More
- The lies fall like flaxen threads from the skies
All over America, and the fact that some of... More
- The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am... More
- At one of the later performances you asked why they called it a “miracle,”
Since nothing... More
- The door is opening. A man you have never seen enters the room.
He tells you that it is time... More
- He was last seen flying to New York.
He was handing out cards which read:
“He wears a... More
- He walks in his sleep into your life.
He is worth knowing only for the children
He has... More
- Still I enjoy
The long sweetness of the simultaneity, yours and mine, ours and mine,
The... More
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