“He had his choice, and he liked the worst.”
Source: The Monster Den: or Look What Happened at My House — and to It
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Famous John Ciardi Quotes
Source: Inferno
Source: The Hopeful Trout and Other Limericks
Source: The Monster Den: or Look What Happened at My House — and to It
Source: The collected poems of John Ciardi
“A man is what he does with his attention and mine is not for sale.”
Source: Selected poems
“A savage is simply a human organism that has not received enough news from the human race.”
“Let our love be like an arch- two weaknesses leaning together to form one strength.”
Source: Ciardi himself: fifteen essays in the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry
Source: The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction
Source: You read to me, I'll read to you
“Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor.”
“Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said: we're not free spenders- doesn't know our like.”
Source: This strangest everything
Source: Manner of Speaking
“The thing about cats, as you may find, Is that no one knows what they have in mind.”
“The constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.”
“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.”
“You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.”
“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.”
“A dollar saved is a quarter earned.”
Source: Manner of Speaking
“Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.”
“General rules have been legislated into being by past masters.”
Source: The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction
“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!”
Source: An Introduction to Literature: How does a poem mean? By J. Ciardi
“Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.”
“Men marry what they need. I marry you.”
Source: Poems of Love and Marriage
Source: Dialogue with an audience