Frank O'Hara Quotes - Page 3

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Eyes Heart Lying Mothers Pain Past Running

The artificial is always innocent.

Frank O'Hara

Innocence, Innocent, Artificial

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.23, Univ of California Press

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I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Negres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

Frank O'Hara

Sleep, Thinking, Play

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.325, Univ of California Press

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And don't worry about your lineage poetic or natural.

Frank O'Hara

Worry, Lineage, Poetic

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.307, Univ of California Press

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and I have mastered the speed and strength which is the armor of the world.

Frank O'Hara

Armor, World, Speed

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.217, Univ of California Press

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I wish I weren’t reeling at all.

Frank O'Hara

Wish

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.29, City Lights Books

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However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

Frank O'Hara

New York, Regret, Past

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.197, Univ of California Press

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Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there'll be nothing left with which to venture forth. Why should I share you? Why don't you get rid of someone else for a change?

Frank O'Hara

Heart, Names, Broken

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.197, Univ of California Press

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See how free we are! as a nation of persons.

Frank O'Hara

Persons, Nations

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.234, Univ of California Press

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I dislike a great deal of contemporary poetry - all of the past you read is usually quite great - but it is a useful thorn to have in one's side.

Frank O'Hara

Past, Sides, Deals

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.500, Univ of California Press

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I don't believe in god, so I don't have to make elaborately sounded structures. ... Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you. ... As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There's nothing metaphysical about it.

Frank O'Hara

Pain, Believe, Common Sense

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And one has eaten and one walks,
past the magazines with nudes
and the posters for bullfight and
the Manhattan Storage Warehouse,
which they'll soon tear down.

Frank O'Hara

Past, Tears, Manhattan

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.13, City Lights Books

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I've got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I'll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don't want me to go where you go, so I go where you don't want me to.

Frank O'Hara

Valleys, Pieces, Want

Frank O'Hara (1967). “Meditations in an Emergency”, p.40, Grove Press

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That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.

Frank O'Hara

Running, Hands, Legs

Frank O'Hara, “Lines For The Fortune Cookies”

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But it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it.

Frank O'Hara

Night, Decision, Wonder

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.29, City Lights Books

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My heart is in my/ pocket. It is poems by Pierre Reverdy.

Frank O'Hara

Heart, Pockets, My Heart

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.13, City Lights Books

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Destroy yourself, if you don't know!

Frank O'Hara

Knows, Ifs

Frank O'Hara (2005). “In Memory of My Feelings: A Selection of Poems”, p.65, The Museum of Modern Art

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the beauty of America, neither cool jazz nor devoured Egyptian
heroes, lies in
lives in the darkness I inhabit in the midst of sterile millions

Frank O'Hara

Beauty, Lying, Hero

Frank O'Hara (1969). “Odes”

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Mothers of America / let your kids go to the movies!

Frank O'Hara

Mother, Kids, America

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.42, City Lights Books

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My Heart I'm not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don't prefer one "strain" to another. I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says "That's not like Frank!," all to the good! I don't wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera, often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--you can't plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

Frank O'Hara

Running, Heart, Feet

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.231, Univ of California Press

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oh mothers you will have made the little tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies
they won't know the difference
and if somebody does it'll be sheer gravy

Frank O'Hara

Movie, Mother, Differences

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.372, Univ of California Press

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My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up.

Frank O'Hara

Eye, Blue, Sky

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.197, Univ of California Press

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Born: March 27, 1926
Died: July 25, 1966
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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