29 quotes found
“Language is the only homeland.”
“I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.”
“Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.”
“You see how I tryTo reach with wordsWhat matters mostAnd how I fail.”
“It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends”
“The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.”
“The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.”
“Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find...”
“LearningTo believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.”
“In a room wherepeople unanimously maintaina conspiracy of silence,one word of truthsounds like a pistol shot.”
“The purpose of poetry is to remind ushow difficult it is to remain just one person,for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.”
“No duties. I don’t have to be profound.I don’t have to be artistically perfect.Or sublime. Or edifying.I just wander. I say: ‘You were running,That’s fine. It was the thing to do.’And now the music...”
“In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent; A thing brought forth that we didn't know we had in us, So we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out And stood in the light, licking...”
“The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person...”
“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.”
“Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning. One after another my former lives were departing, like ships, togethe...”
“Horror is the law of the world of living creatures, and civilization is concerned with masking that truth. Literature and art refine and beautify, and if they were to depict reality naked, just as ...”
“I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A river, suffering because reflections of clouds and tress and not clouds and trees.”
“The bright side of the planet moves toward darknessAnd the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,And for me, now as then, it is too much.There is too much world.”
“Reality calls for a name, for words, but it is unbearable, and if it is touched, if it draws very close, the poet’s mouth cannot even utter a complaint of Job: all art proves to be nothing compared...”
