Quote

Let the snake wait under his weed and the writing be of words, slow and quick, sharp to strike, quiet to wait, sleepless. - through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks.

William Carlos Williams

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William Carlos Williams
Age: 79 †
Born: 1883
Born: September 17
Died: 1963
Died: March 4
Autobiographer
Literary Critic
Physician
Physician Writer
Poet
Writer
Words
Strikes
Snakes
Ideas
Slow
Splits
Writing
Stones
Invent
Things
Wait
Sharp
People
Rocks
Strike
Sleepless
Flower
Weed
Compose
Quiet
Quick
Snake
Waiting
Metaphor
Reconcile

More quotes by William Carlos Williams

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Poets are being pursued by the philosophers today, out of the poverty of philosophy. God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.
William Carlos Williams
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One by one the objects are defined? It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance?Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken.
William Carlos Williams
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Who isn't frustrated and does not prove it by his actions - if you want to say so? But through art the psychologically maimed may become the most distinguished man of his age. Take Freud for instance.
William Carlos Williams
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Unless there is a new mind there cannot be a new line, the old will go on repeating itself with recurring deadliness
William Carlos Williams
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Everyone in this life is defeated but a man, if he be a man, is not defeated.
William Carlos Williams
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One thing I am convinced more and more is true, and that is this: The only way to be truly happy is to make others happy. When you realize that and take advantage of the fact, everything is made perfect.
William Carlos Williams
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What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise?
William Carlos Williams
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The pure products of America go crazy--mountain folk from Kentucky or the ribbed north end of Jersey with its isolate lakes and valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves.
William Carlos Williams
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There is no comment on pictures but pictures, on music but music, on poems but poetry. If you do, you do. If you don't, you don't. And that's all there is to that.
William Carlos Williams
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To make a start, out of particulars and make them general, rolling up the sum, by defective means Sniffing the trees, just another dog among a lot of dogs.What else is there? And to do?
William Carlos Williams
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First we have to see. Or first we have to be taught to see. We have to be taught to see here, because here is everywhere, related to everywhere else, and if we don't see, hear, taste, smell and feel in this place - not only will we never know anything but the world of sense will be by that much diminished everywhere.
William Carlos Williams
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Outside, the north wind, coming and passing, swelling and dying, lifts the frozen sand drives it a-rattle against the lidless windows and we may dear sit stroking the cat stroking the cat and smiling sleepily, prrrr.
William Carlos Williams
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Your thighs are appletrees whose blossoms touch the sky. Your knees are a southern breeze.
William Carlos Williams
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I think of the poetry of René Char and all he must have seen and suffered that has brought him to speak only of sedgy rivers, of daffodils and tulips whose roots they water, even to the free-flowing river that laves the rootlets of those sweet-scented flowers that people the milky way
William Carlos Williams
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Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks.
William Carlos Williams
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It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.
William Carlos Williams
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I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.
William Carlos Williams
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By listening to his language of his locality the poet begins to learn his craft. It is his function to lift, by use of imagination and the language he hears, the material conditions and appearances of his environment to the sphere of the intelligence where they will have new currency.
William Carlos Williams
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Sure love is cruel and selfish and totally obtuse-- at least, blinded by the light, young love is.
William Carlos Williams
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Death will be too late to bring us aid.
William Carlos Williams