“There are aspects of human life that are not purely destructive, and there is a need to pay attention to the things around us while they are still around us. And you know, in a way, if you don't pay that attention, the anger is just bitterness.” IfsKnowsWayNeedsHumansStillsPayAttentionAspectPay AttentionHuman LifeDestructiveBitterness Author:W. S. Merwin
“It's an attitude of superiority. We are superior to the rest of life. The Book of Genesis says: 'Increase and multiply and have dominion over the birds of the air and the animals and so forth.' You run it; it's yours; do what you like with it. I don't know how old that text is, but it represents an attitude that probably really got going with the beginning of agriculture. Before that, the hunter-gatherers were gentler people than the agriculture.” PeopleKnowsBookRunningAnimalAttitudeKnow HowAirBirdIncreaseSuperiorsAgricultureSuperiorityHuntersDominionGenesisRest Of LifeHunter GatherersBook Of Genesis Author:W. S. Merwin
“There are poets who believe that you shouldn't engage at all in any cause. And there's something to be said for that. Because you don't want to - I think most political poetry is very bad. And it's very bad because you know too much to start with. You have a sense that you're right, and you're trying to tell other people what's right. And I think that's always kind of fundamentalism, and I don't like it.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWantTryingBelieveKindSaidPoliticalCausesToo MuchPoetPoetry IsFundamentalism Author:W. S. Merwin
“But most love poetry is awful; nobody knows how to write good love poetry either. But that's not a reason not to write love poetry. Some of the best poetry ever written has been love poetry, and some of the greatest poetry ever written has been political poetry.” KnowsWritingHas BeensReasonPoliticalKnow HowWrittenAwfulPoetry IsNobody KnowsLove PoetryGood LoveBest PoetryGreatest Poetry Author:W. S. Merwin
“Obviously a garden is not the wilderness but an assembly of shapes, most of them living, that owes some share of its composition, it’s appearance, to human design and effort, human conventions and convenience, and the human pursuit of that elusive, indefinable harmony that we call beauty. It has a life of its own, an intricate, willful, secret life, as any gardener knows. It is only the humans in it who think of it as a garden. But a garden is a relationship, which is one of the countless reasons why it is never finished.” ThinkingKnowsHumansReasonEffortSecretShareDesignShapesGardenHarmonyAppearanceFinishedPursuitReason WhyWildernessConventionsCompositionConvenienceGardenerAssemblyElusiveIntricateSecret LifeIndefinable Author:W. S. Merwin
