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Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens Quotes

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Famous Wallace Stevens Quotes

“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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“It is easy to suppose that few people realize on that occasion, which comes to all of us, when we look at the blue sky for the first time, that is to say: not merely see it, but look at it and experience it and for the first time have a sense that we live in the center of a physical poetry, a geography that would be intolerable except for the non-geography that exists there - few people realize that they are looking at the world of their own thoughts and the world of their own feelings.”

PeopleWorldFirstsLooksFeelingsWould BeEasyRealizingVisionSeeingSkyFirst TimeBlueOccasionsAweGeographyBlue Sky
Book:The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination
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“In the same way, you were happy in spring, With the half colors of quarter-things, The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds, The single bird, the obscure moon- The obscure moon lighting an obscure world Of thing that would never be quite expressed, Where you yourself were never quite yourself And did not want nor have to be.”

WorldWayWantHalfSkyColorMoonSpringBirdCloudsQuartersObscureNever QuitBrighterLightingMelting
Book:The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
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“The consolations of space are nameless things. It was after the neurosis of winter. It was In the genius of summer that they blew up The statue of Jove among the boomy clouds. It took all day to quieten the sky And then to refill its emptiness again.”

SpaceSkyGeniusSummerWinterCloudsEmptinessConsolationStatuesJulyNeurosisNamelessRefills
Book:The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play
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“Trees Trees, proud standing people stretching fingertips to the sky, reaching, praying glorious attention, breathing light. strength shelter timeless confidence bending and firm comforting rooted chorus line dancing with the moon, the wind, the clouds framing bursts of stars tender rugged celebration absorbing and releasing life each holy branch holding the power of the Universe. There.”

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Author:Wallace Stevens
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“The leaves hop, scraping on the ground. It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. It is in this solitude, a syllable, Out of these gawky flitterings, Intones its single emptiness, The savagest hollow of winter-sound.”

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