Quotes By Marianne Moore

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

There never was a war that was not inward.

Poetry is all nouns and verbs.

Superior people never make long visits.

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

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

We are suffering from too much sarcasm.

Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.

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

It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic, forever, like the old man of the sea, upon his back.

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

Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.

When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

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

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

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