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Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens Quotes

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Famous Wallace Stevens Quotes

“Poetry is a satisfying of the desire for resemblance. As the mere satisfying of a desire, it is pleasurable. But poetry if it did nothing but satisfy a desire would not rise above the level of many lesser things. Its singularity is that in the act of satisfying the desire for resemblance it touches the sense of reality, it enhances the sense of reality, heightens it, intensifies it.”

DesirePoetrySatisfactionResemblancePoeticsSense Of RealityHeightens
Book:The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination
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“She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need for imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams And our desires. Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang?”

NeedsFeelsDoeStillsDreamEarthDeathMotherDesireFallPerfectSeaSkyRiversFruitHeavyFulfillmentBlissParadiseContentmentShoreOur DreamsRipeUnchangingInarticulatePerishingRipe Fruit
Author:Wallace Stevens
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“There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings.”

HomeSpiritDesireHeavenSpringBirdGreenWingsSouthEndureGravesGoldenEveningHillsProphecyRemembrancePalmsJuneAprilAwakenedVisionariesLike HerCloudyIsleChimera
Book:The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play
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