Quote

Only silence perfects silence.

A. R. Ammons

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

A. R. Ammons
Age: 75 †
Born: 1926
Born: February 18
Died: 2001
Died: February 26
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Whiteville
North Carolina
A.R. Ammons
A R Ammons
AR Ammons
Perfects
Silence

More quotes by A. R. Ammons

Image
A poem generated by its own laws may be unrealized and bad in terms of so-called objective principles of taste, judgement, deduction.
A. R. Ammons
Image
I have a life that did not become, that turned aside and stopped, astonished
A. R. Ammons
Image
The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Things go away to return, brightened for the passage
A. R. Ammons
Image
The white sun like a moth on a string circles the southpole.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without
A. R. Ammons
Image
Attend to mushrooms and all other things will answer up.
A. R. Ammons
Image
One can't have it both ways and both ways is the only way I want it.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Everything is discursive opinion instead of direct experience.
A. R. Ammons
Image
The wonderful workings of the world: wonderful, wonderful: I'm surprised half the time
A. R. Ammons
Image
Though I have looked everywhere / I can find nothing lowly / in the universe.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Where but in the very asshole of comedown is redemption: as where but brought low, where but in the grief of failure, loss, error do we discern the savage afflictions that turn us around: where but in the arrangements love crawls us through
A. R. Ammons
Image
I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries, shutting out and shutting in, separating inside from outside: I have drawn no lines
A. R. Ammons
Image
If a poem is each time new, then it is necessarily an act of discovery, a chance taken, a chance that may lead to fulfillment or disaster
A. R. Ammons
Image
Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition
A. R. Ammons
Image
Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.
A. R. Ammons
Image
I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful.
A. R. Ammons
Image
I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.
A. R. Ammons