John Ciardi's Quotes

The day will happen whether or not you get up.

Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.

Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.

There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.

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.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.

Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.

The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

Nothing goes further toward a man's liberation than the act of surviving his need for character.

The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it.

You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.

Poetry lies its way to the truth.

The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

A dollar saved is a quarter earned.

A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.

Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!

Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.

Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.

It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.

What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.