Marianne Moore's Quotes

We are suffering from too much sarcasm.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.

Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.

As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

Superior people never make long visits.

A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.

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

Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.

I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.

If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.

If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try.

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.

It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing.

My father used to say superior people never make long visits.

Poetry is all nouns and verbs.

Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt.

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

There never was a war that was not inward.

You're not free until you've been made captive by supreme belief.