Charles Simic Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The stars know everything, So we try to read their minds. As distant as they are, We choose to whisper in their presence.

  Charles Simic

  Stars, Mind, Trying

  Charles Simic (2013). “New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012”, p.328, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas.

  Charles Simic

  Philosophical, Ideas, Seduction

  Charles Simic (2013). “The Monster Loves His Labyrinth”, p.70, Copper Canyon Press

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• Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.

  Charles Simic

  Firefighter, Poetry, Enough

  Charles Simic (1990). “Selected Poems, 1963-1983”, George Braziller

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• Making art in America is about saving one's soul.

  Charles Simic

  Art, America, Soul

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• If the sky falls they shall have clouds for supper.

  Charles Simic

  Fall, Clouds, Sky

  Charles Simic (2013). “New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012”, p.18, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I left parts of myself everywhere, The way absent-minded people leave Gloves and umbrellas Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck

  Charles Simic

  Color, People, Luck

  Charles Simic (2013). “New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012”, p.123, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I'm not a stickler for truth. To me, lying in poetry is much more fun. I'm against lying in life, in principle, in any other activity except poetry.

  Charles Simic

  Fun, Lying, Principles

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• The ambition of much of today's literary theory seems to be to find ways to read literature without imagination.

  Charles Simic

  Ambition, Literary Theory, Imagination

  Charles Simic (2013). “The Monster Loves His Labyrinth”, p.63, Copper Canyon Press

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• Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades (mass-produced items promoted into art objects, such as Duchamp's "Fountain"-urinal as sculpture) abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen.

  Charles Simic

  Art, Found Objects, Sculpture

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• The stone is a mirror which works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket.

  Charles Simic

  Heart, Mirrors, Black

  Charles Simic (2013). “New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012”, p.114, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Roberto Calasso's survey of the renewed interest in myth demonstrates how decisive the gods' influence was on modern literature. Calasso is not only immensely learned; he is one of the most original thinkers and writers we have today.

  Charles Simic

  Today, Literature, Influence

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• A 'truth' detached and purified of pleasures of ordinary life is not worth a damn in my view. Every grand theory and noble sentiment ought to be first tested in the kitchen-and then in bed, of course.

  Charles Simic

  Views, Kitchen, Bed

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• A poem is an instant of lucidity in which
  the entire organism participates.

  Charles Simic

  Instant, Lucidity, Organisms

  Charles Simic (1985). “The Uncertain Certainty: Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry”

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• There are people who live inside their heads and their intellects. It's something one is born with and stuck with. It's not something you make a decision about.

  Charles Simic

  People, Decision, Born

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• Only brooms
  Know the devil
  Still exists,
  
  That the snow grows whiter
  After a crow has flown over it

  Charles Simic

  Snow, Evil, Crow

  Charles Simic (2013). “New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Here is something we can all count on. Sooner or later our tribe always comes to ask us to agree to murder.

  Charles Simic

  Tribes, Murder, Agree

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• To submit to chance is to reveal the self and its obsessions.

  Charles Simic

  Self, Chance, Obsession

  "Dime-store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell". Book by Charles Simic, therumpus.net. 1992.

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• Poetry is an orphan of silence.

  Charles Simic

  Silence, Orphan, Poetry Is

  Charles Simic (1985). “The Uncertain Certainty: Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry”

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• Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator.

  Charles Simic

  Summer, Making Love, Pages

  Charles Simic (2015). “The Life of Images: Selected Prose”, p.22, Harper Collins

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• In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in the street.

  Charles Simic

  Children, Divorce, Class

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• There’s no preparation for poetry.

  Charles Simic

  Preparation

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• There are knives that glitter like altars
  In a dark church
  Where they bring the cripple and the imbecile
  To be healed.
  
  There's a woden block where bones are broken,
  Scraped clean--a river dried to its bed

  Charles Simic

  Block, Dark, Knives

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