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William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams Quotes

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Famous William Carlos Williams Quotes

“The rock has split, the egg has hatched, the prismatically plumed bird of life has escaped from its cage. It spreads its wings and is perched now on the peak of the huge African mountain Kilimanjaro. Strange recompense, in the depths of our despair at the unfathomable mist into which all mankind is plunging, a curious force awakens. It is Hope long asleep, aroused once more. Wilson has taken an army of advisers and sailed for England. The ship has sunk. But the men are all good swimmers. They take the women on their shoulders and buoyed on by the inspiration of the moment they churn the free seas with their sinewy arms, like Ulysses, landing all along the European seaboard. Yes, hope has awakened once more in men's hearts. It is NEW! Let us go forward! The imagination, freed from the handcuffs of "Art", takes the lead! Her Feet are bare and not too delicate. In fact those who come behind her have much to think of. Hm. Let it pass.”

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Book:Imaginations
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“But the thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is always one: the virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses, close to the nose. It is this difficulty that sets a value upon all works of art and makes them a necessity. The senses witnessing what is immediately before them in detail see a finality which they cling to in despair, not knowing which way to turn. Thus this so-called natural or scientific array becomes fixed, the walking devil of modern life.”

WayWritingArtLyingValuesTurnsImaginationNaturalKnowingModernWalkingDespairDevilDirectDifficultyDetailsSensesNosesFixedWorks Of ArtNot KnowingImpossibilityModern LifeLiftingScrutinyGood WritingFinality
Book:Kora in Hell: Improvisations
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“Let the snake wait under his weed and the writing be of words, slow and quick, sharp to strike, quiet to wait, sleepless. - through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks.”

PeopleWritingIdeasWaitingRocksFlowerQuietStonesMetaphorStrikesNo IdeaWeedSplitsSnakesReconcile
Book:The Collected Poems of Williams Carlos Williams: 1939-1962
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“Writing is not a searching about in the daily experience for apt similes and pretty thoughts and images… It is not a conscious recording of the day’s experiences ‘freshly and with the appearance of reality’… The writer of imagination would find himself released from observing things for the purpose of writing them down later. He would be there to enjoy, to taste, to engage the free world, not a world which he carries like a bag of food, always fearful lest he drop something or someone get more than he.”

WorldWritingRealityWould BePurposeEnjoyImaginationTasteConsciousAppearanceBagsCarrieFearfulObservingSimileFree WorldDaily ExperiencePurpose Of Writing
Author:William Carlos Williams
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