Home / Authors / Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore Quotes

Poet

American poet known for her unique modernist style and profound philosophical insights. Her poetry is concise and insightful, often exploring themes of nature, art, and the human condition.

Filter quotes by topic

All Poetry Ifs Writing Poet Language Poem Hands Men Modernist People Simplicity Sun Thinking War Words Art Poetry Is Animal Fighting Garden

Famous Marianne Moore Quotes

“One ventures, commits one's self, and if readers are not pleased, one can perhaps please one's self and earn that slender right to persevere.”

Writing Poetry Pleasing Yourself

Book:Predilections

Source: Predilections

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

Writing Reason Calling No Reason Categories

Book:The complete prose of Marianne Moore

Source: The complete prose of Marianne Moore

“What I write could only be called poetry because there is no other category to put it.”

Writing Poetry Is Categories

Author:Marianne Moore

“Conscious writing can be the death of poetry.”

Writing Conscious

Author:Marianne Moore

“[On her use of quotations:] When a thing has been said so well that it could not be said better, why paraphrase it? Hence my writing, is, if not a cabinet of fossils, a kind of collection of flies in amber.”

Ifs Writing Wells Kind Has Beens Said Use Collections Quotations Fossils Cabinets Amber Paraphrase

Author:Marianne Moore

“One writes because one has a burning desire to objectify what it is indispensable to one's happiness to express.”

Writing Desire Burning Indispensable Burning Desire

Book:Idiosyncrasy & Technique

Source: Idiosyncrasy & Technique

“Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go.”

Writing Baseball Exciting Fanaticism

Book:The complete poems of Marianne Moore

Source: The complete poems of Marianne Moore

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

Writing Honest Please Pleasing Others

Book:The complete prose of Marianne Moore

Source: The complete prose of Marianne Moore

“A man is a writer if all his words are strung in definite sentence sounds.”

Ifs Men Writing Sound Sentences Definite

Author:Marianne Moore

“Writing is an undertaking for the modest.”

Writing Modest Undertakings

Book:The complete prose of Marianne Moore

Source: The complete prose of Marianne Moore

About the Author

Born: November 15, 1887
Died: February 5, 1972
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 132

Books & Sources

Complete PoemsRelated source material

The complete prose of Marianne MooreRelated source material

Observations: PoemsRelated source material

Becoming Marianne Moore: The Early Poems, 1907-1924Related source material

The complete poems of Marianne MooreRelated source material

Idiosyncrasy & TechniqueRelated source material

The Selected Letters of Marianne MooreRelated source material

Collected PoemsRelated source material

Festschrift for Marianne Moore's seventy seventh birthdayRelated source material

Like a bulwarkRelated source material

Similar Authors

Carl SandburgBrowse related quotes
Joyce Carol OatesBrowse related quotes
Wallace StevensBrowse related quotes
Robert FrostBrowse related quotes
Edward HirschBrowse related quotes
Virginia WoolfBrowse related quotes
Babette DeutschBrowse related quotes
W. H. AudenBrowse related quotes
Mehmet Murat IldanBrowse related quotes
William ZinsserBrowse related quotes