Marianne Moore Quotes

"A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself."

"Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others."

"As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust."

"Egotism is usually subversive of sagacity."

"If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist."

"In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity."

"It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing."

"My father used to say superior people never make long visits."

"Poetry is all nouns and verbs."

"Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads."

"Superior people never make long visits."

"The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease."

"There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war."

"War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized."

"We are suffering from too much sarcasm."

"When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser."