James Merrill Quotes

• The day is breaking someone else's heart.

  James Merrill

  Heart, Breaking Someone

  James Merrill (1982). “From the First Nine: Poems, 1946-1976”, New York : Atheneum

  7 Copy quote

• Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.

  James Merrill

  Communication, Parent, Strange

  James Ingram Merrill (2004). “Collected Prose”, Knopf

  8 Copy quote

• Class is classlessness.

  James Merrill

  Class

  6 Copy quote

• But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice.

  James Merrill

  Air, Play, Two

  James Ingram Merrill (2004). “Collected Prose”, Knopf

  4 Copy quote

• And, as I have said, it's made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren't external, how astonishing the mediums become! Victor Hugo said of his voices that they were like his own mental powers multiplied by five.

  James Merrill

  Thinking, Voice, Imagination

  7 Copy quote

• In life, there are no perfect affections.

  James Merrill

  Life, Perfect, Inspire

  James Ingram Merrill (2004). “Collected Prose”, Knopf

  4 Copy quote

• The simplest science book is over my head.

  James Merrill

  Book, Simplest, Science Books

  James Ingram Merrill (2004). “Collected Prose”, Knopf

  6 Copy quote

• Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays.

  James Merrill

  Couple, Play, Trying

  7 Copy quote

• At college I'd seen my dead frog's limbs twitch under some applied stimulus or other - seen, but hadn't believed. Didn't dream of thinking beyond or around what I saw.

  James Merrill

  Dream, College, Thinking

  James Ingram Merrill (2004). “Collected Prose”, Knopf

  7 Copy quote

• Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images.

  James Merrill

  Vocabulary, Fit, Arthur

  James Ingram Merrill (2004). “Collected Prose”, Knopf

  6 Copy quote

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