Robert Lowell Quotes

Quotes about:

• Poetry is not the record of an event: it is an event.

  Robert Lowell

  Art, Poetry, Events

  26 Copy quote

• If youth is a defect, it is one we outgrow too soon.

  Robert Lowell

  Youth, Defects, Ifs

  53 Copy quote

• We feel the machine slipping from our hands As if someone else were steering; If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train.

  Robert Lowell

  Tunnels, Light, Hands

  'Since 1939' (1977).

  30 Copy quote

• The world is absolutely out of control now and is not going to be saved by any reason or unreason.

  Robert Lowell

  World, Reason, Saved

  28 Copy quote

• In the end, there is no end.

  Robert Lowell

  Ends

  Robert Lowell (1979). “Harvard Advocate”

  31 Copy quote

• Talking about the past is like a cat's trying to explain climbing down a ladder.

  Robert Lowell

  Cat, Past, Climbing

  Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell (2008). “Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell”

  15 Copy quote

• I was overcome with an attack of pathological enthusiasm.

  Robert Lowell

  Overcoming, Enthusiasm

  18 Copy quote

• I myself am hell;
  nobody's here

  Robert Lowell

  Hell

  'Skunk Hour' (1959) st. 5

  16 Copy quote

• Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what a vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction.

  Robert Lowell

  Writing, Mean, Purpose

  Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell (2008). “Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell”

  15 Copy quote

• History has to live with what was here,
  clutching and close to fumbling all we had -
  it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
  unlike writing, life never finishes.

  Robert Lowell

  Writing, Dull, Dies

  Robert Lowell (2017). “New Selected Poems”, p.145, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  19 Copy quote

• It is night,
  And it is vanity, and age
  Blackens the heart of Adam. Fear,
  The yellow chirper, beaks its cage.

  Robert Lowell

  Fear, Heart, Night

  Robert Lowell (1964). “Poems, 1938-1949”

  21 Copy quote

• In the end, every hypochondriac is his own prophet.

  Robert Lowell

  Prophet, Ends, Hypochondriac

  Robert Lowell (1969). “Notebook 1967-68”

  10 Copy quote

• Most poetry is very formal, but when a modern poet is formal he gets more attention for it than old poets did.

  Robert Lowell

  Attention, Poet, Modern

  Robert Lowell, Jeffrey Meyers (1988). “Robert Lowell, Interviews and Memoirs”, p.52, University of Michigan Press

  18 Copy quote

• I'm sure that writing isn't a craft, that is, something for which you learn the skills and go on turning out. It must come from some deep impulse, deep inspiration. That can't be taught, it can't be what you use in teaching.

  Robert Lowell

  Teaching, Inspiration, Writing

  Robert Lowell, Jeffrey Meyers (1988). “Robert Lowell, Interviews and Memoirs”, p.49, University of Michigan Press

  14 Copy quote

• Everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility slides by on grease.

  Robert Lowell

  Car, Grease, Giants

  "For the Union Dead" l. 65 (1964)

  14 Copy quote

• I want to apologize for plaguing you with so many telephone calls last November and December. When the 'enthusiasm' is coming on me it is accompanied by a feverish reaching out to my friends. After its over I wince and wither.

  Robert Lowell

  Depression, Bipolar, Want

  13 Copy quote

• We are all old-timers, each of us holds a locked razor.

  Robert Lowell

  Razors, Timer, Locked

  Robert Lowell (1979). “Robert Lowell: A Tribute”

  8 Copy quote

• It's the light of the oncoming train.

  Robert Lowell

  Light, Light At The End Of The Tunnel, End Of The Tunnel

  'Since 1939' (1977).

  15 Copy quote

• Pity the planet, all joy gone
  from this sweet volcanic cone

  Robert Lowell

  Sweet, Joy, Gone

  Robert Lowell, Jeffrey Meyers (1988). “Robert Lowell, Interviews and Memoirs”, p.188, University of Michigan Press

  7 Copy quote

• Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme--
  why are they no help to me now
  I want to make
  something imagined, not recalled?

  Robert Lowell

  Blessed, Poetry, Plot

  Robert Lowell (1979). “Robert Lowell: a tribute”

  12 Copy quote

• But sometimes everything I write
  with the threadbare art of my eye
  seems a snapshot

  Robert Lowell

  Art, Eye, Writing

  Robert Lowell (1979). “Robert Lowell: a tribute”

  4 Copy quote

• Pity the planet, all joy gone from this sweet volcanic cone; peace to our children when they fall in small war on the heel of small war--until the end of time to police the earth, a ghost orbiting forever lost in our monotonous sublime

  Robert Lowell

  Sweet, Children, War

  Robert Lowell, Jeffrey Meyers (1988). “Robert Lowell, Interviews and Memoirs”, p.188, University of Michigan Press

  16 Copy quote

• Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city's throat.

  Robert Lowell

  Lakes, Sea, Fishing

  "For the Union Dead" l. 29 (1964)

  26 Copy quote

• Middle Age At forty-five, What next, what next? At every corner, I meet my Father, My age, still alive.

  Robert Lowell

  Father, Age, Alive

  'Middle Age' (1964)

  9 Copy quote

• I saw the spiders marching through the air, Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day In latter August when the hay Came creaking to the barn. But where The wind is westerly, Where gnarled November makes the spiders fly Into the apparitions of the sky, They purpose nothing but their ease and die Urgently beating east to sunrise and the sea.

  Robert Lowell

  Swimming, Air, August

  Poems 1938-1949 (1950) "Mr Edwards and the Spider"

  9 Copy quote

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