Quote

we know our end A packet of worm-seed, a garden of spent tissues.

Allen Tate

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Allen Tate
Age: 79 †
Born: 1899
Born: November 19
Died: 1979
Died: February 9
Author
Literary Critic
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Winchester
Kentucky
John Orley Allen Tate
Worms
Seed
Seeds
Spent
Garden
Ends
Packet
Tissues
Worm

More quotes by Allen Tate

Image
I thought I heard the dark pounding its head On a rock, crying: Who are the dead?
Allen Tate
Image
For intellect is a mansion where waste is without drain.
Allen Tate
Image
I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.
Allen Tate
Image
Good manners, Madam, are had these days not For your asking, nor mine, nor what-we-used-to-be's. The day is a loud grenade that bursts a smile Of serious weeds in a comic lily plot.
Allen Tate
Image
My darling boy whom I shall never know, My son, I love you in my deepest fears.
Allen Tate
Image
POET If not in a place, where are the People weeping? LIBERAL They creep weeping in the face, not place. POET Is it something with which we may cope The weeping, the creeping, the peepee-ing, the peeping?
Allen Tate
Image
Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.
Allen Tate
Image
Men expect too much, do too little, Put the contraption before the accomplishment, Lack skill of the interior mind To fashion dignity with shapes of air. Luxury, yes but not elegance!
Allen Tate
Image
Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker.
Allen Tate
Image
In the cold morning the rested street stands up To greet the clerk who saunters down the world.
Allen Tate
Image
Dramatic experience is not logical it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.
Allen Tate
Image
How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.
Allen Tate
Image
Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.
Allen Tate
Image
Poets, in their way, are practical men they are interested in results.
Allen Tate
Image
We are afraid that we have not lived. We are not afraid of dying.
Allen Tate
Image
Last night I fled until I came To streets where leaking casements dripped Stale lamplight from the corpse of flame A nervous window bled.
Allen Tate
Image
So face with calm that heritage And earn contempt before the age.
Allen Tate
Image
So the dubbed conceit Played nursery of cheat To clear the I of sleet.
Allen Tate
Image
The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
Allen Tate
Image
Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.
Allen Tate