Geoffrey Hill Quotes

• Public toilets have a duty to be accessible, poetry does not.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Doe, Toilets, Duty

  8 Copy quote

• I think art has a right — not an obligation — to be difficult if it wishes. And, since people generally go on from this to talk about elitism versus democracy, I would add that genuinely difficult art is truly democratic.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Art, Thinking, People

  "Geoffrey Hill, The Art of Poetry No. 80". Interview with Carl Phillips, www.theparisreview.org. Spring 2000.

  16 Copy quote

• We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We're difficult to ourselves, we're difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most “intellectual” piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are? Why does music, why does poetry have to address us in simplified terms, when if such simplification were applied to a description of our own inner selves we would find it demeaning?

  Geoffrey Hill

  Real, Self, Ordinary Days

  10 Copy quote

• ... one of the things the tyrant most cunningly engineers is the gross over-simplification of language, because propaganda requires that the minds of the collective respond primitively to slogans of incitement.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Tyrants, Mind, Language

  9 Copy quote

• We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We’re difficult to ourselves, we’re difficult to each other.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Difficult, Humans, Human Beings

  "Geoffrey Hill, The Art of Poetry No. 80". Interview with Carl Phillips, www.theparisreview.org. Spring 2000.

  4 Copy quote

• Snooki is a bestselling author? Huh? What? I don't know if I should dumb down my book, shoot myself or find a publisher who'll settle for a rough draft written on a Pop-Tart and a coconut lotion handie.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Book, Dumb, Rough Drafts

  24 Copy quote

• Autumn resumes the land, ruffles the woods
  with smoky wings, entangles them.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Nature, Autumn, Land

  Geoffrey Hill (2000). “New & Collected Poems, 1952-1992”, p.148, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Thus I grind to conclusion.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Grind, Conclusion

  4 Copy quote

• Dig -- the mostly uncouth -- language of grace.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Grace, Language, Uncouth

  Geoffrey Hill (2013). “Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012”, p.415, Oxford University Press

  4 Copy quote

• As estimated, you died. Things marched,
  sufficient, to that end.
  Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented
  terror, so many routine cries.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Death, Routine, Cry

  Geoffrey Hill (2000). “New & Collected Poems, 1952-1992”, p.55, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Platonic England, house of solitudes,
  rests in its laurels and its injured stone

  Geoffrey Hill

  House, Solitude, Stones

  Geoffrey Hill (2013). “Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012”, p.129, Oxford University Press

  4 Copy quote

• September fattens on vines. Roses flake from the wall. The smoke of harmless fires drifts to my eyes. This is plenty. This is more than enough.

  Geoffrey Hill

  Wall, Eye, Fire

  Geoffrey Hill (2013). “Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012”, p.44, Oxford University Press

  6 Copy quote

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