Frank O'Hara Quotes

Quotes about:

• Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.

  Frank O'Hara

  Beautiful, Interesting, Personality

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.202, Univ of California Press

  31 Copy quote

• oh god it’s wonderful to get out of bed and drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and love you so much

  Frank O'Hara

  Coffee, Love You, Bed

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.371, Univ of California Press

  36 Copy quote

• I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

  Frank O'Hara

  Inspiring, Men, Want

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

  31 Copy quote

• O my enormous piano, you are not like being outdoors

  Frank O'Hara

  Piano, Enormous

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.216, Univ of California Press

  48 Copy quote

• It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely, that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time.

  Frank O'Hara

  Intangible Quality, Events, Details

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

  30 Copy quote

• I have, for my own projected works and ideas, only the silliest and dewiest of hopes; no matter what, I am romantic enough or sentimental enough to wish to contribute something to life's fabric, to the world's beauty.... [S]imply to live does not justify existence, for life is a mere gesture on the surface of the earth, and death a return to that from which we had never been wholly separated; but oh to leave a trace, no matter how faint, of that brief gesture! For someone, some day, may find it beautiful!

  Frank O'Hara

  Beautiful, Ideas, Wish

  26 Copy quote

• And always embrace things, people earth sky stars, as I do, freely and with the appropriate sense of space.

  Frank O'Hara

  Stars, Sky, Space

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

  22 Copy quote

• Grace / to be born and live as variously as possible

  Frank O'Hara

  Grace, Born

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.256, Univ of California Press

  22 Copy quote

• the only truth is face to face, the poem whose words become your
  mouth
  and dying in black and white we fight for what we love, not are

  Frank O'Hara

  Truth, Fighting, Black And White

  Frank O'Hara (1969). “Odes”

  28 Copy quote

• I embraced a cloud but when I soared it rained.

  Frank O'Hara

  Clouds

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.201, Univ of California Press

  9 Copy quote

• Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! / You really are beautiful! Pearls, / harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins!

  Frank O'Hara

  Beautiful, Chocolate, Aspirin

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.15, Univ of California Press

  18 Copy quote

• I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'

  Frank O'Hara

  Running, Stars, Knives

  12 Copy quote

• The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages. In all modesty, I confess that it may be the death of literature as we know it.

  Frank O'Hara

  Two, Literature, May

  13 Copy quote

• I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.

  Frank O'Hara

  Age, Different, Firsts

  Frank O'Hara (1977). “Early writing”, Bookpeople

  6 Copy quote

• Leaf! you are so big! How can you change your color, then just fall! As if there were no such thing as integrity!

  Frank O'Hara

  Integrity, Fall, Color

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.21, Univ of California Press

  3 Copy quote

• You just go on your nerve.

  Frank O'Hara

  Nerves, Goes On

  "He does this, he does that" by Charles Bainbridge, www.theguardian.com. July 11, 2003.

  10 Copy quote

• When I am feeling depressed and anxious sullen
  all you have to do is take your clothes off
  and all is wiped away revealing life tenderness
  that we are flesh and breathe and are near us
  as you are really as you are I become as I
  really am alive and knowing vaguely what is
  and what is important to me above the intrusions
  of incident and accidental relationships
  which have nothing to do with my life

  Frank O'Hara

  I Love You, Clothes, Feelings

  "Love Poems".

  3 Copy quote

• 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's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is.

  Frank O'Hara

  Regret, Clouds, People

  11 Copy quote

• A man was the cause of it all. An unarmed man with a weapon.

  Frank O'Hara

  Men, Weapons, Causes

  "The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara".

  12 Copy quote

• Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too, don't I? I'm just like a pile of leaves.

  Frank O'Hara

  Lying, Tree, Heaven

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

  8 Copy quote

• I loved her fright, which was against me into the air! and the diamond white of her forelock which seemed to smart with thoughts as my heart smarted with life! and she'd toss her head with the pain and paw the air and champ the bit, as if I were Endymion and she, moon-like, hated to love me.

  Frank O'Hara

  Pain, Smart, Heart

  Frank O'Hara (1967). “Meditations in an Emergency”, p.12, Grove Press

  16 Copy quote

• it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

  Frank O'Hara

  New York, Believe, Light

  Frank O'Hara (1965). “Love Poems (tentative Title)”

  11 Copy quote

• I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!

  Frank O'Hara

  Want, Faster, Greener

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.30, Univ of California Press

  10 Copy quote

• Mothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to it's true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images and when you grow old as grow old you must they won't hate you

  Frank O'Hara

  Mother, Hate, Kids

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

  8 Copy quote

• Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.

  Frank O'Hara

  Mother, Kids, Giving

  9 Copy quote

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