John Ashbery Inspirational Quotations

Life is not at all what you might think it to be A simple tale where each thing has its history It's much more than its scuffle and anything goes Both evil and good, subject to the same laws.

Life is beautiful. He who reads that As in the window of some distant, speeding train Knows what he wants, and what will befall.

The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how....

To the poet as a basement quilt, but perhaps To some reader a latticework of regrets ...

The sun fades like the spreading Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight Might be read as a warning to those desperate For easy solutions.

This whole moment is the groin Of a borborygmic giant who even now Is rolling over on us in his sleep.

Then let yourself love all that you take delight in Accept yourself whole, accept the heritage That shaped you and is passed on from age to age Down to your entity. Remain mysterious; Rather than be pure, accept yourself as numerous.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

All beauty, resonance, integrity, Exist by deprivation or logic Of strange position.

Expecting rain, the profile of a day Wears its soul like a hat....