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The public library is the most dangerous place in town
John Ciardi
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John Ciardi
Age: 69 †
Born: 1916
Born: June 24
Died: 1986
Died: March 30
Journalist
Linguist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
John Anthony Ciardi
Town
Towns
Library
Dangerous
Public
Place
More quotes by John Ciardi
At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected, I shall forgive last the delicately wounded who, having been slugged no harder than anyone else, never got up again, neither to fight back, nor to finger their jaws in painful admiration.
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Spontaneous is what you get after the seventeenth draft.
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It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their conviction. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their convictions.
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Patience is the art of caring slowly.
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Fermentation equals civilization.
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The thing about cats, as you may find, Is that no one knows what they have in mind.
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A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
John Ciardi
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.
John Ciardi
Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
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The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.
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Honesty: The ability to resist small temptations.
John Ciardi
You have to fall in love with hanging around words.
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I'm smiled out, talked out, quipped out, socialized so far from any being, I need the weight of mortal silences to get realized back into myself.
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The day will happen whether or not you get up.
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A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.
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Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what's possible Could reason half the jungle out of being.
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Conviction is possible only in a world more primitive than ours can be perceived to be. A man can achieve a simply gnomic conviction only by ignoring the radical describers of his environment, or by hating them, as convinced men have hated, say, Darwin and Freud, as agents of some devil.
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I have one head that wants to be good, And one that wants to be bad. And always, as soon as I get up, One of my heads is sad.
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Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.
John Ciardi
A university is a reading and discussion club. If students knew how to use the library, they wouldn't need the rest of the buildings. The faculty's job, in great part, is to teach students how to use a library in a living way. All a student should really need is access to the library and a place to sleep.
John Ciardi
