Wallace Stevens Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Life's nonsense pierces us with strange relation.

  Wallace Stevens

  Strange, Nonsense, Relation

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p.383, Vintage

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• All of our ideas come from the natural world: trees equal umbrellas.

  Wallace Stevens

  Nature, Ideas, Tree

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

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• A change of style is a change of meaning.

  Wallace Stevens

  Style

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• An old argument with me is that the true religious force in the world is not the church, but the world itself: the mysterious callings of Nature and our responses.

  Wallace Stevens

  Religious, Religion, Church

  Wallace Stevens, Holly Stevens (1966). “Letters of Wallace Stevens”, p.58, Univ of California Press

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• The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in itself.

  Wallace Stevens

  Poetry, Purpose, Poetry Is

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.243, Vintage

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• To live in the world but outside of existing conceptions of it.

  Wallace Stevens

  World, Conception

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.246, Vintage

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• in the presence of extraordinary actuality, consciousness takes the place of imagination.

  Wallace Stevens

  Imagination, Consciousness, Extraordinary

  Wallace Stevens, Holly Stevens (1966). “Letters of Wallace Stevens”, p.411, Univ of California Press

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• A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.

  Wallace Stevens

  Writing, Men, Poetry

  16 Copy quote

• Imagination applied to the whole world is vapid in comparison to imagination applied to a detail.

  Wallace Stevens

  Imagination, Vapid, Details

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.256, Vintage

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• The great poems of heaven and hell have been written and the great poem of earth remains to be written.

  Wallace Stevens

  Heaven, Earth, Hell

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

  7 Copy quote

• Day after day, throughout the winter,
  We hardened ourselves to live by bluest reason
  In a world of wind and frost.

  Wallace Stevens

  Determination, Winter, Wind

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p.124, Vintage

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• Disillusion is the last illusion.

  Wallace Stevens

  Lasts, Illusion, Disillusion

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• Life is the elimination of what is dead.

  Wallace Stevens

  Life Is, Elimination

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.250, Vintage

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• The imagination is man's power over nature.

  Wallace Stevens

  Men, Imagination, Creative

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.260, Vintage

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• Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.

  Wallace Stevens

  Beautiful, Mother, Flower

  12 Copy quote

• There may be always a time of innocence.
  There is never a place.

  Wallace Stevens

  May, Innocence

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p.418, Vintage

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• In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all.

  Wallace Stevens

  Love, Writing, Ideas

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.243, Vintage

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• Everybody is looking at everybody else a foolish crowd walking on mirrors.

  Wallace Stevens

  Mirrors, Crowds, Foolish

  Wallace Stevens, Holly Stevens (1966). “Letters of Wallace Stevens”, p.38, Univ of California Press

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• I can't make head or tail of Life. Love is a fine thing, Art is a fine thing, Nature is a fine thing; but the average human mind and spirit are confusing beyond measure. Sometimes I think that all our learning is the little learning of the maxim. To laugh at a Roman awe-stricken in a sacred grove is to laugh at something today.

  Wallace Stevens

  Love, Art, Thinking

  Wallace Stevens, Holly Stevens (1966). “Letters of Wallace Stevens”, p.86, Univ of California Press

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• A violent order is disorder; and a great disorder is an order. These two things are one.

  Wallace Stevens

  Order, Two, Violent

  "Connoisseur of Chaos" l. 1 (1942)

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• I certainly do not exist from nine to six, when I am at the office.

  Wallace Stevens

  Office, Nine, Six

  Wallace Stevens, Holly Stevens (1966). “Letters of Wallace Stevens”, p.121, Univ of California Press

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• I have said no
  To everything, in order to get at myself.
  I have wiped away moonlight like mud.

  Wallace Stevens

  Order, Rejection, Mud

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Selected Poems”, p.143, Knopf

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• A poet's words are of things that do not exist without the words.

  Wallace Stevens

  Poet

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination”, p.32, Vintage

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• The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

  Wallace Stevens

  Food, Ice Cream, Cooking

  "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" l. 7 (1923)

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• The night
  Makes everything grotesque. Is it because
  Night is the nature of man's interior world?

  Wallace Stevens

  Night, Men, World

  Wallace Stevens, Jos e Rodr iguez Feo, Beverly Coyle, Alan Filreis (1986). “Secretaries of the Moon: The Letters of Wallace Stevens & José Rodríguez Feo”, p.14, Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press

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