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In the increasingly convincing darkness The words become palpable, like a fruit That is too beautiful to eat.

John Ashbery

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John Ashbery
Age: 90 †
Born: 1927
Born: July 28
Died: 2017
Died: September 3
Journalist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Rochester
New York
G'on Ashberi
John Ashberry
Jonas Barry
Jon Asshuberī
John Lawrence Ashbery
John Ashbery
Like
Palpable
Convincing
Increasingly
Fruit
Darkness
Words
Beautiful
Become

More quotes by John Ashbery

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The winter does what it can for its children.
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Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night.
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I listen to music a great deal. In a way, it's trying to express things that can't be expressed in words. That's something that interests me, too. Even though I use words to express myself, I am trying to, it seems to me, get beyond that.
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Some certified nut Will try to tell you it's poetry, (It's extraordinary, it makes a great deal of sense) But watch out or he'll start with some New notion or other.
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Once a happy old man One can never change the core of things, and light burns you the harder for it.
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Life is not at all what you might think it to be A simple tale where each thing has its history It's much more than its scuffle and anything goes Both evil and good, subject to the same laws.
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A perfect example of the new republic's urge to drape itself with the togas of classical respectability.
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We are prisoners of the world's demented sink. The soft enchantments of our years of innocence Are harvested by accredited experience Our fondest memories soon turn to poison And only oblivion remains in season.
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The soul is not a soul, Has no secret, is small, and it fits Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
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And just as there are no words for the surface, that is, No words to say what it really is, that it is not Superficial but a visible core, then there is No way out of the problem of pathos vs. experience.
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Just keep playing, mastering as you do the step Into disorder this one meant. Don't you see It's all we can do? Meanwhile, great fires Arise, as of haystacks aflame. The dial has been set And that's ominous, but all your graciousness in living Conspires with it, now that this is our home: A place to be from, and have people ask about.
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Sometimes a musical phrase would perfectly sum up The mood of a moment. One of those lovelorn sonatas For wind instruments was riding past on a solemn white horse. Everybody wondered who the new arrival was.
John Ashbery
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Reading is a pleasure, but to finish reading, to come to the blank space at the end, is also a pleasure.
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You stupefied me. We waxed, Carnivores, late and alight In the beaded winter. All was ominous, luminous.
John Ashbery
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Therefore bivouac we On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by Veiled scruples, worn conundrums. Morning is Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up Over the horizon like a boy On a fishing expedition.
John Ashbery
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Part of the strength of Pollock and Rothko's art, in fact, is this doubt as to whether art may be there at all.
John Ashbery
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There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.
John Ashbery
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The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest?
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Extreme patience and persistence are required, Yet everybody succeeds at this before being handed The surprise box lunch of the rest of his life.
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What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich?
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