Velimir Khlebnikov famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

A child playing with dolls may shed heartfelt tears when his bundle of rags and scraps becomes deathly ill and dies ... So we may come to an understanding of language as playing with dolls: in language, scraps of sound are used to make dolls and replace all the things in the world.
-- Velimir Khlebnikov

#Children #Poetry #Understanding
Scrape the surface of language, and you will behold interstellar space and the skin that encloses it.
-- Velimir Khlebnikov

#Space #Skins #Language

Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sandpits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behavior not otherwise excusable.
The music had to be rooted, and yet had to branch out,like the wild imagination of a child.
Everything. I have done everything you wanted...You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me. I was frightening...I have reordered time...I have turned the world upside down...And I have done it all for you. I am exhausted from living up to your expectations.
Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out . . .. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.
Much contemporary verse reads like failed short-short stories rather than failed poetry.
Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker.
We need a safe place, a reserve of truth, a place where words kindle ideas and set ideas sparking off in others, a word sanctuary. Poetry is this gathering place of words.
Steadfastness is a noble quality, but unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy.

Velimir Khlebnikov famous quotes

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