Marianne Moore famous quotes

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

#Writing #Honest #Please

the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
-- Marianne Moore

#Ocean #Sea #Return

Originality is... a by-product of sincerity.
-- Marianne Moore

#Being Yourself #Being Single #Originality

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

#Inspirational #Life #Art

Your thorns are the best part of you.
-- Marianne Moore

#Personality #Thorns

Omissions are not accidents.
-- Marianne Moore

#Omission #Accidents

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

#Relationship #Passion #People

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

#Unfair

The power of the visible is the invisible.
-- Marianne Moore

#Angel #Invisible

The heart that gives, gathers.
-- Marianne Moore

#Life #Heart #Giving

War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.
-- Marianne Moore

#Peace #War #Might

I, too, dislike it. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.
-- Marianne Moore

#Reading #Perfect #Genuine

There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war.
-- Marianne Moore

#Freedom #War #Fighting

I'm troubled. I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish.
-- Marianne Moore

#Dissatisfied #Nationalism

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence.
-- Marianne Moore

#Silence #Feelings #Deepest Feelings

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

#Calling #Reason #Categories

The deft white-stockinged dance in thick-soled shoes! Denmark's sanctuaried Jews!
-- Marianne Moore

#Shoes #White #Dancing

Victory won't come to me unless I go to it; a grape tendril ties a knot in knots till knotted thirty times
-- Marianne Moore

#Ties #Victory #Knots

What is there in being able to say that one has dominated the stream in an attitude of self-defense; in proving that one has had the experience of carrying a stick?
-- Marianne Moore

#Attitude #Self #Defense

Unconfusion submits its confusion to proof; it's not a Herod's oath that cannot change.
-- Marianne Moore

#Confusion #Proof #Submit

Not 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.
-- Marianne Moore

#Real #Garden #Imagination

The Irish say your trouble is their trouble and your joy their joy? I wish I could believe it; I am troubled, I'm dissatisfied, I'm Irish.
-- Marianne Moore

#Believe #Joy #Wish

Superior people never make long visits.
-- Marianne Moore

#Inspirational #Long #People

There never was a war that was not inward.
-- Marianne Moore

#War #Inward

O to be a dragon, a symbol of the power of Heaven-of silk-worm size or immense; at times invisible. Felicitous phenomenon!
-- Marianne Moore

#Dragons #Heaven #Size

We don't like flowers that do not wilt; they must die, and nine she-camel hairs aid memory.
-- Marianne Moore

#Memories #Flower #Hair

What is our innocence, What is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe.
-- Marianne Moore

#Guilt #Safe #Naked

Does it follow that because there are poisonous toadstools which resemble mushrooms, both are dangerous?
-- Marianne Moore

#Mushrooms #Doe #Poison

There is a great amount of poetry in unconscious fastidiousness.
-- Marianne Moore

#Poetry #Unconscious

At all events there is in Brooklyn something that makes me feel at home.
-- Marianne Moore

#Home #Brooklyn #Events

Of the crow-blue mussel shells, one keeps adjusting the ash heaps; opening and shutting itself like an injured fan.
-- Marianne Moore

#Blue #Crow #Shells

When we think we don't like art it is because it is artificial art.
-- Marianne Moore

#Art #Thinking

Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.
-- Marianne Moore

#Beauty #Dust #Everlasting

Camels are snobbish and sheep, unintelligent; water buffaloes, neurasthenic-- even murderous. Reindeer seem over-serious.
-- Marianne Moore

#Sheep #Water #Reindeer

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

#Artist #Doubt #Technique

The mind is an enchanting thing is an enchanted thing, like the glaze on a katydid-wing subdivided by sun till the nettings are legion.
-- Marianne Moore

#Wings #Mind #Sun

As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.
-- Marianne Moore

#Trust #Sickness #Contagion

Among animals, one has a sense of humor. Humor saves a few steps, it saves years.
-- Marianne Moore

#Animal #Years #Steps

Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral; he could handle any missile.
-- Marianne Moore

#Capes #Yogi #Handle

As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one's attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.
-- Marianne Moore

#Butterfly #Vain #Congruence