Marianne Moore

“Nevertheless"you've seen a strawberrythat's had a struggle; yetwas, where the fragments met,a hedgehog or a star-fish for the multitudeof seeds. What better foodthan apple seeds - the fruitwithin the fruit - locked inlike counter-curved twinhazelnuts? Frost that killsthe little rubber-plant -leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can'tharm the roots; they still growin frozen ground. Once wherethere was a prickley-pear -leaf clinging to a barbed wire,a root shot down to growin earth two feet below;as carrots from mandrakesor a ram's-horn root some-times. Victory won't cometo me unless I goto it; a grape tendrilties a knot in knots tillknotted thirty times - sothe bound twig that's under-gone and over-gone, can't stir.The weak overcomes itsmenace, the strong over-comes itself. What is therelike fortitude! What sapwent through that little threadto make the cherry red!”

“You do not seem to realize that beauty is a liability ratherthanan asset - that in view of the fact that spirit creates formwe are justified in supposingthat you must have brains. For you, a symbol of theunit, stiff and sharp,conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority andliking for everythingself-dependent, anything anambitious civilization might produce: for you, unaided, toattempt through sheerreserve, to confuse presumptions resulting fromobservation, is idle. You cannot make usthink you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you arebrilliant, itis not because your petals are the without-which-nothingof pre-eminence. Would you not, minusthorns, be a what-is-this, a mereperculiarity? They are not proof against a worm, theelements, or mildew;but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliancewithout co-ordination? Guarding theinfinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience tothe remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be re-membered too violently,your thorns are the best part of you.”

“[Marianne Moore's definition of genuine poetry] -- Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”

“When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do not admire what we cannot understand.”

“Superior people never make long visits.”

“I am hard to disgust, but a pretentious poet can do it”

“If we can't be cordial to these creatures' fleece, I think that we deserve to freeze.”

“You are not male or female, but a plandeep-set within the heart of man.”

“Yule—Yul log for the Christmas-fire tale-spinner—of fairy tales that can come true: Yul Brynner.”

“Wolf's wool is the best wool, but it cannot be sheared, because the wolf will not comply. With knowledge as with wolves' surliness, the student studies voluntarily, refusing to be less than individual. He "gives his opinion and then rests upon it"; he renders service when there is no reward, and is too reclusive for some things to seem to touch him; not because he has no feeling but because he has so much.”

“Truly as the sun can rot or mend, love can make one bestial or make a beast a man.”

“They fought the enemy, we fight fat living and self-pity. Shine, o shine, unfalsifying sun, on this sick scene.”

“... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ...... if you demand on one hand,the raw material of poetry inall its rawness andthat which is on the other handgenuine, then you are interested in poetry.”

“... wedo not admire whatwe cannot understand.”

“Poetry...... a place for the genuine,Hands that can grasp, eyesthat can dilate, hair that can rise”

“...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination" --above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we have it.”

“Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.”

“Words cluster like chromosomes, determining the procedure.”

“Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ...of the main strengths of each. Each is attentive to clues, each must narrow the choice, must strive for precision. As George Grosz says, “In art there is no place for gossip and but a small place for the satirist.” The objective is fertile procedure. Is it not? Jacob Bronowski says in The Saturday Evening Post that science is not a mere collection of discoveries, but that science is the process of discovering. In any case it’s not established once and for all; it’s evolving.”

“There never was a war that was not inward.”

“...discovering Antarctica, its penguin kings and icy spires...”

“The self does not realize itself most fully when self-realization is its most constant aim.”

“The heart that gives, gathers. ”

“The hands are the heart's messengers.”

“Your thorns are the best part of you.”

“The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence.”