Marianne Moore Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• Not till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"-above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." shall we have it.

  Marianne Moore

  Real, Garden, Imagination

  'Poetry' (1935)

  7 Copy quote

• We prove, we do not explain, our birth.

  Marianne Moore

  Birth, Prove

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.80, Penguin

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• We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic: Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic, None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.

  Marianne Moore

  Heaven, Black, Magic

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.260, Penguin

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• [The] whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so much confusion.

  Marianne Moore

  Stars, Loss, Sky

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.5, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the
  sea;
  the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.

  Marianne Moore

  Sea, Looks, Return

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.49, Penguin

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• The Irish say your trouble is their trouble and your joy their joy? I wish I could believe it; I am troubled, I'm dissatisfied, I'm Irish.

  Marianne Moore

  Believe, Joy, Wish

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.114, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• My father used to say, "Superior people never make long visits, have to be shown Longfellows grave, or the glass flowers at Harvard."

  Marianne Moore

  Father, Flower, Glasses

  "Silence" l. 1 (1935)

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• Among animals, one has a sense of humor. Humor saves a few steps, it saves years.

  Marianne Moore

  Animal, Years, Steps

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.119, Penguin

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• Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go.

  Marianne Moore

  Baseball, Writing, Exciting

  Marianne Moore (1967). “The complete poems of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

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• I wonder what Adam and Eve think of it by this time.

  Marianne Moore

  Time, Thinking, Wonder

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.62, Penguin

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• A man is a writer if all his words are strung in definite sentence sounds.

  Marianne Moore

  Writing, Men, Sound

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• We don't like flowers that do not wilt; they must die, and nine she-camel hairs aid memory.

  Marianne Moore

  Memories, Flower, Hair

  Marianne Moore (1967). “The complete poems of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

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• If we can't be cordial to these creatures' fleece, I think that we deserve to freeze.

  Marianne Moore

  Thinking, Creatures, Fleece

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.195, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• Men are monopolists of "stars, garters, buttons and other shining baubles"- unfit to be the guardians of another person's happiness.

  Marianne Moore

  Marriage, Stars, Men

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.67, Penguin

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• The self does not realize itself most fully when self-realization is its most constant aim.

  Marianne Moore

  Self, Doe, Realization

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• Does it follow that because there are poisonous toadstools
  which resemble mushrooms, both are dangerous?

  Marianne Moore

  Mushrooms, Doe, Poison

  Marianne Moore (2016). “Observations: Poems”, p.56, Macmillan

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• What I write could only be called poetry because there is no other category to put it.

  Marianne Moore

  Writing, Categories, Poetry Is

  Interview with Donald Hall, pub.'Paris Review' The Art of Poetry, no 26 (1961), 1960.

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• I, too, dislike it. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.

  Marianne Moore

  Reading, Perfect, Genuine

  'Poetry' (1935)

  7 Copy quote

• The prey of fear, he, always curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work partly done, says to the alternating blaze, "Again the sun! anew each day; and new and new and new, that comes into and steadies my soul."

  Marianne Moore

  Fear, Soul, Done

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.120, Penguin

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• There is no pleasure subtler than the sensation of being a good workman; and in work there is the sense of consanguinity-unconscious as a rule but sometimes conscious.

  Marianne Moore

  Work, Sometimes, Pleasure

  Marianne Moore, Patricia C. Willis (1986). “The complete prose of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

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• At all events there is in Brooklyn
  something that makes me feel at home.

  Marianne Moore

  Home, Events, Brooklyn

  Marianne Moore (1968). “The Collected Poems of Marianne Moore”

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• The weak overcomes its/ menace, the strong over-/comes itself.

  Marianne Moore

  Strong, Overcoming, Weak

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.126, Penguin

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• Concurring hands divide
  
  flax for damask
  that when bleached by Irish weather
  has the silvered chamois-leather
  water-tightness of a
  skin.

  Marianne Moore

  Work, Hands, Weather

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.113, Penguin

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• Yule—Yul log for the Christmas-fire tale-spinner—of fairy tales that can come true: Yul Brynner.

  Marianne Moore

  Christmas, Fire, Yule

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.228, Penguin

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• Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral; he could handle any missile.

  Marianne Moore

  Capes, Yogi, Missiles

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.222, Penguin

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