“I think Miss Moore was right to cut "The Steeple-Jack" - the poem seems plainer and clearer in its shortened state but she has cut too much... The reader may feel like saying, "Let her do as she pleases with the poem; it's hers, isn't it?" No; it's much too good a poem for that, it long ago became everybody's, and we can protest just as we could if Donatello cut off David's left leg.” IfsThinkingFeelsMayLongStatesSeemsLeftToo MuchCuttingMissingReaderPleaseLegsProtestLong AgoSteeplesDonatello Author:Randall Jarrell
“Early in his life Mr. [Ezra] Pound met with strong, continued, and unintelligent opposition. If people keep opposing you when you are right, you think them fools; and after a time, right or wrong, you think them fools simply because they oppose you. Similarly, you write true things or good things, and end by thinking things true or good simply because you write them” PeopleIfsThinkingWritingEndsStrongFoolMetsGood ThingsOppositionPoundsOpposingUnintelligentTrue Things Author:Randall Jarrell
“Goethe said that the worst thing in art is technical facility accompanied by triteness. Many an artist, like God, has never needed to think twice about anything. His works are the mad scene from Giselle , on ice skates: he weeps, pulls out his hair holding his wrists like Lifar and tells you what Life is, all at a gliding forty miles an hour.” ThinkingArtSaidLife IsArtistHoursWorstHairNeededSceneArt IsMadMilesIceFortyWorst ThingsFacilityWristsSkatesThink TwiceGliding Author:Randall Jarrell
“Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingMeanUseFeelingsCertainAttitudeSeeingInfluenceSubjectsStyleProduceReaderDeterminationAtmosphere Author:Randall Jarrell
“Carl Becker has defined a professor as a man who thinks otherwise; a scholar is a man who otherwise thinks.” ThinkingMenDefinedProfessorsScholar Author:Randall Jarrell
“More and more people think of the critic as an indispensable middle man between writer and reader, and would no more read a book alone, if they could help it, than have a baby alone.” PeopleIfsThinkingMenBookHelpingMiddleBabyReaderCriticsIndispensable Author:Randall Jarrell
“I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry.” ThinkingCultureModernDefinitionsNineIdolatryModern Culture Author:Randall Jarrell
