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William Carlos Williams Quotes

Poet

William Carlos Williams was an American poet born on September 17, 1883, and died on March 4, 1963. His poetry style emphasized colloquialism and the depiction of everyday life, which had a profound impact on American poetry.

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All Writing Ifs Imagination Men Art May Knows Poetry Thinking Love Love Is Mind Wind World Facts Flower Made Tree Age Dark

Famous William Carlos Williams Quotes

“For there is a wind or a ghost of wind in all books echoing the life there, a high wind that fills the tubes of the ear until we think we hear a wind, actual.”

Thinking Book Wind Ears Ghost Tubes

Author:William Carlos Williams

“I think of the poetry of René Char and all he must have seen and suffered that has brought him to speak only of sedgy rivers, of daffodils and tulips whose roots they water, even to the free-flowing river that laves the rootlets of those sweet-scented flowers that people the milky way”

People Thinking Way Speak Water Sweet Flower Rivers Roots Milky Way Daffodil Flowing River

Book:The Collected Poems of Williams Carlos Williams: 1939-1962

Source: The Collected Poems of Williams Carlos Williams: 1939-1962

“Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks.”

Thinking Ideas Rocks Creation Flower No Idea Thoughtful Splits

Book:The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962

Source: The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962

“I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.”

Thinking Writing Disease

Author:William Carlos Williams

“I think these days when there is so little to believe in——when the old loyalties——God, country, and the hope of Heaven——aren't very real, we are more dependent than we should be on our friends. The only thing left to believe in——someone who seems beautiful.”

Thinking Should Believe Littles Real Country Seems Beautiful Left Heaven Loyalty These Days Dependent

Book:Selected essays

Source: Selected essays

“Sometimes I find myself thinking, rather wistfully, about Lao Tzu's famous dictum: 'Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.' All around me I see something very different, let us say - a number of angry dwarfs trying to grill a whale.”

Thinking Trying Different Sometimes Nations Numbers Fame Angry Cooking Fishes Cooks Whales Great Nations Dwarfs Laos Small Fish Lao Tzu

Author:William Carlos Williams

“Hell take curtains! Go with some show of inconvenience; sit openly - to the weather as to grief. Or do you think you can shut your grief in?”

Thinking Shows Grief Hell Weather Curtains Inconvenience

Book:The William Carlos Williams Reader

Source: The William Carlos Williams Reader

“Poets are being pursued by the philosophers today, out of the poverty of philosophy. God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.”

Thinking Men Writing Philosophy Might Today Poverty Poet Philosopher Damn Permission Pursued Philosophic

Book:The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams

Source: The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams

About the Author

Born: September 17, 1883
Died: March 4, 1963
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 161

Books & Sources

The Collected Poems of William Carlos WilliamsRelated source material

The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962Related source material

ImaginationsRelated source material

The William Carlos Williams ReaderRelated source material

Selected poemsRelated source material

PatersonRelated source material

Asphodel, that Greeny Flower & Other Love PoemsRelated source material

In the American GrainRelated source material

Selected essaysRelated source material

The Selected Letters of William Carlos WilliamsRelated source material

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