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I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

Gerald Stern

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Gerald Stern
Age: 99
Born: 1925
Born: February 22
Poet
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Fear
Left
Remember
Shyness
Temperament
Obedience
Kindness

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I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed I was too far gone to believe in it. And I'm shocked how generation after generation repeats the behavior.
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I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.
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Men aren't called pricks, but women are called cunts.
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Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.
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I've been trying to come to terms with what I am and what I do and what I believe in. And I see that I'm not happy with - well, it's almost as if being a poet is not enough for me. It's too late for me to do more now. I did what I could in a small way. I did it as theater, too, to be honest.
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It's a kind of liberation to break free in language, if you can break free, but it's also a confinement, because form confines you - whatever the form.
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I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to.
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The act of writing itself isn't outrageous. And the institution subtly and insidiously works on you in such a way that though you seem to have freedom you become a servant. Your main issue is to get promoted to the next thing. Or get invited to a picnic. Or get tenure. Or get laid.
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Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those which - who - are.
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Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art. He gave himself to his own kind of religion.
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If the Buddhist's job is to be detached, I think that the artist's job is to be both detached and attached.
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For the Christian mystics, detachment meant to leave attachment so that God could enter you and take over completely and you could climb the ladder to their heaven. Kind of crazy, but what the hell?
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Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.
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There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.
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Some poems are art because of their passion.
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Oppressed persons, oppressed cultures, tend to be more political, obviously, as are those with a rage for justice, or the crazy messianic desire.
Gerald Stern