Carson McCullers
Love of another individual opens a new relation between the personality and the world. — Carson McCullers, The Mortgaged Heart: Selected Writings (Houghton Mifflin, 1971)
Category: Writings
Theodore Roethke
Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries. — Theodore Roethke, Theodore Roethke, Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63. (Copper Canyon Press November 1, 2006)
Jean Racine
A tragedy need not have blood and death; it’s enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy. — Jean Racine
Robert Frost
A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words. — Robert Frost, in a letter to Louis Untermeyer (January 1,… Continue reading Robert Frost
Frank O’Hara
If life were merely a habit, I should commit suicide; but even now, more or less desperate, I cannot but think, ‘Something wonderful may happen.’ It is not optimism, it is a rejection of self-pity (I hope) which leaves a loophole for life… I merely choose to remain living out of respect for possibility. And… Continue reading Frank O’Hara
Friedrich Nietzsche
Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche. (Modern Library;… Continue reading Friedrich Nietzsche
Nathan Brown
Poetic approaches to the limits of fabrication are not so historically determined. Sometime around 1862, Emily Dickinson starts a poem with “I cannot live with You –”, then proceeds to unfold a labyrinth of grammatical, theological, and syllogistic implications before arriving at the following decisive formulation: “So We must meet apart – / You there… Continue reading Nathan Brown
Frank O’Hara
If life were merely a habit, I should commit suicide; but even now, more or less desperate, I cannot but think, ‘Something wonderful may happen.’ It is not optimism, it is a rejection of self-pity (I hope) which leaves a loophole for life… I merely choose to remain living out of respect for possibility. And… Continue reading Frank O’Hara
The Vale of Soul-Making 