The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: John Ashbery

It is the lumps and trialsThat tell us whether we shall be knownAnd whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.

How many people came and stayed a certain time,Uttered light or dark speech that became part of youLike light behind windblown fog and sandFiltered and influenced by it, until no partRemains that is surely you.

influence, others, poem, poetry, self

I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.

The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes

So one can lose a good ideaby not writing it down, yet by losing it one can have it: it nourishes other asidesit knows nothing of, would not recognize itself in, yet when the negotiationsare terminated, speaks in the acts of that progenitor, and doesrecognize itself, is grateful for not having done so earlier.

forgetting, memory, thought

until only infinity remained of beauty

beauty, infinity

Things can harden meaningfully in the moment of indecision

indecision, time

Its a bit mad. Too bad, I mean, that getting to know each just for a fleeting second Must be replaced by unperfect knowledge of the featureless wholeLike some pocket history of the world, so generalAs to constitute a sob or wail

A little bunny or some kind of ferret was probablythere too, and bore witness as only rodents can.

bunny, ferret, poem, poetry, rodents

I’m heading for a clean-named placelike Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o’-lantern, will get therewithout help and nosy proclivities.

assistance, independence, nosiness, poem, poetry, travel, wisconsin

The first year was like icing. Then the cake started to show through …

ashbery, cake, love, poetry, reality, year

Walter Pater said that all the arts aspire to the condition of music, but I’ve always felt that music aspires to the condition of words.

arts, music, words