Charles Olson

“When will government cease being a nuisance to everybody?”

“You can read everybody. It's not even interesting to tell the truth because to some extent it's false.”

“You can do anything, literally, right? That's one of the exciting possibilities of the present.”

“Atlantis will rise again.”

“A poem is a ‘line’ between any two points in creation.”

“I remember way back when I was young, 10 years ago.”

“We're all moving, moving, moving. Isn't it nice?”

“I'm trying to climb up both walls at once.”

“I don't live for poetry. I live far more than anybody else does.”

“The poem, for me, is simply the first sound realized in the modality of being.”

“I'm sorry, but I was born with a towel on my head.”

“There is a grace of life which is still yours, my dear Europe.”

“I hope you're representing the devil's advocate.”

“This country has been unconscious, and it's got to awake. That's my belief.”

“Forgive me if I sleep until I wake up.”

“This morning of the small snow I count the blessings, the leak in the faucet which makes of the sink time, the drop of the water on water.”

“I am happy to have some friends here in the kitchen.”

“I defer to all these other American poets who, for some reason, I both envy and admire.”

“I sound like Homer. I mean Winslow Homer.”

“I'm one of the cliches that has grown up.”