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[The] whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the star on the steeple it is a privilege to see so much confusion.

Marianne Moore

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Marianne Moore
Age: 84 †
Born: 1887
Born: November 15
Died: 1972
Died: February 5
Essayist
Poet
Translator
Writer
Kirkwood
Missouri
Marianne Moore
Marianne Craig Moore
Disaster
Marshes
Privilege
Bends
Sky
Whirlwind
Star
Drum
Fife
Loss
Salt
Steeple
Stars
Confusion
Steeples
Much
Grass
Marsh
Storm
Disturbs

More quotes by Marianne Moore

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It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing.
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So wary as to disappear for centuries and reappear but never caught, the unicorn has been preserved by an unmatched device wrought like the work of expert blacksmiths.
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In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity.
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I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.
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Omissions are not accidents.
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Everything I have written is the result of reading or of interest in people.
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Below the incandescent stars / below the incandescent fruit, / the strange experience of beauty / its existence is too much / it tears one to pieces / and each fresh wave of consciousness / is poison.
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Maine should be pleased that its animal is not a waverer, and rather than fight, lets the primed quill fall. Shallow oppressor, intruder, insister, you have found a resister.
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The heart that gives, gathers.
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Victory won't come to me unless I go to it a grape tendril ties a knot in knots till knotted thirty times
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When one is frank, one's very presence is a compliment.
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Egotism is usually subversive of sagacity.
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A man is a writer if all his words are strung in definite sentence sounds.
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You are not male nor female, but a plan deep-set within the heart of man.
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Excess is the common substitute for energy.
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Truly as the sun can rot or mend, love can make one bestial or make a beast a man.
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... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ... ... if you demand on one hand, the raw material of poetry in all its rawness and that which is on the other hand genuine, then you are interested in poetry.
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What I write could only be called poetry because there is no other category to put it.
Marianne Moore
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Originality is... a by-product of sincerity.
Marianne Moore
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The Irish say your trouble is their trouble and your joy their joy? I wish I could believe it I am troubled, I'm dissatisfied, I'm Irish.
Marianne Moore