John Ciardi Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said: we're not free spenders- doesn't know our like.

  John Ciardi

  Money, War, Boys

  John Ciardi (1966). “This strangest everything”

  7 Copy quote

• To read a poem with no thought in mind but to paraphrase it into a single, simple and usually high-minded prose statement is the destruction of poetry.

  John Ciardi

  Simple, Mind, Destruction

  5 Copy quote

• The thing about cats, as you may find,
  Is that no one knows what they have in mind.

  John Ciardi

  Cat, Mind, Might

  "You read to me, I'll read to you".

  5 Copy quote

• A university is a reading and discussion club. If students knew how to use the library, they wouldn't need the rest of the buildings. The faculty's job, in great part, is to teach students how to use a library in a living way. All a student should really need is access to the library and a place to sleep.

  John Ciardi

  Jobs, Reading, Sleep

  John Ciardi (1989). “Ciardi himself: fifteen essays in the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry”, Univ of Arkansas Pr

  5 Copy quote

• Boys are the cash of war.

  John Ciardi

  War, Boys, Cash

  John Ciardi (1966). “This strangest everything”

  7 Copy quote

• Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what's possible Could reason half the jungle out of being.

  John Ciardi

  Believe, Animal, Doctors

  John Ciardi, Edward M. Cifelli (1997). “The collected poems of John Ciardi”, Univ of Arkansas Pr

  4 Copy quote

• Honesty: The ability to resist small temptations.

  John Ciardi

  Honesty, Temptation, Ability

  5 Copy quote

• The success of the poem is determined not by how much the poet felt in writing it, but by how much the reader feels in reading it.

  John Ciardi

  Reading, Writing, Poetry

  4 Copy quote

• Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.

  John Ciardi

  Hope, Dad, Father

  9 Copy quote

• General rules have been legislated into being by past masters.

  John Ciardi

  Writing, Past, Masters

  4 Copy quote

• A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.

  John Ciardi

  Neighborhood, City Life, Areas

  8 Copy quote

• Fermentation equals civilization.

  John Ciardi

  Beer, Civilization, Fermentation

  10 Copy quote

• A dollar saved is a quarter earned.

  John Ciardi

  Funny, Humor, Dollars

  John Ciardi (1972). “Manner of Speaking”

  8 Copy quote

• A carbonated wine foisted upon Americans (who else would drink it?) by winery ad agencies as a way of getting rid of inferior champagne by mixing it with inferior burgundy.

  John Ciardi

  Food, Wine, Agency

  7 Copy quote

• Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.

  John Ciardi

  Identity, Language, Nations

  5 Copy quote

• One night I dreamed I was locked in my Father's watch
  With Ptolemy and twenty-one ruby stars
  Mounted on spheres and the Primum Mobile
  Coiled and gleaming to the end of space
  And the notched spheres eating each other's rinds
  To the last tooth of time, and the case closed.

  John Ciardi

  Stars, Father, Night

  John Ciardi (1969). “The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction”

  4 Copy quote

• Nothing goes further toward a man's liberation than the act of surviving his need for character.

  John Ciardi

  Character, Men, Survival

  7 Copy quote

• I'm smiled out, talked out, quipped out, socialized so far from any being, I need the weight of mortal silences to get realized back into myself.

  John Ciardi

  Tired, Silence, Needs

  John Ciardi (1969). “The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction”

  5 Copy quote

• Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.

  John Ciardi

  Sugar, Milk, Sponges

  16 Copy quote

• It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their conviction. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their convictions.

  John Ciardi

  Courage, Men, Bravery

  John Ciardi (1972). “Manner of Speaking”

  8 Copy quote

• I have one head that wants to be good, And one that wants to be bad. And always, as soon as I get up, One of my heads is sad.

  John Ciardi

  Want, Get Up, Be Good

  John Ciardi (1962). “You read to me, I'll read to you”, HarperCollins Children's Books

  4 Copy quote

• Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.

  John Ciardi

  Modern Life, Gone, Rich

  30 Copy quote

• A savage is simply a human organism that has not received enough news from the human race.

  John Ciardi

  Race, Civilization, Savages

  4 Copy quote

• Conviction is possible only in a world more primitive than ours can be perceived to be. A man can achieve a simply gnomic conviction only by ignoring the radical describers of his environment, or by hating them, as convinced men have hated, say, Darwin and Freud, as agents of some devil.

  John Ciardi

  Hate, Men, Devil

  7 Copy quote

• What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.

  John Ciardi

  Poet, Theory, Concern

  John Ciardi (1963). “Dialogue with an audience”

  8 Copy quote

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