John Ciardi

“What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.”

“A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.”

“Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.”

“The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it.”

“A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.”

“Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.”

“Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.”

“The day will happen whether or not you get up.”

“A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.”

“The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.”

“And the time sundials tellMay be minutes and hours. But it may just as wellBe seconds and sparkles, or seasons and flowers.No, I don't think of time as just minutes and hours.Time can be heartbeats, or bird songs, or miles,Or waves on a beach, or ants in their files(They do move like seconds—just watch their feet go:Tick-tick-tick, like a clock). You'll learn as you growThat whatever there is in a garden, the sunCounts up on its dial. By the time it is doneOur sundial—or someone's— will certainly addAll the good things there are. Yes, and all of the bad.And if anyone's here for the finish, the sunWill have told him—by sundial—how well we have done.How well we have done, or how badly. Alas,That is a long thought. Let me hope we all pass.”

“Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.”

“The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.”

“I have one head that wants to be good,And one that wants to be bad.And always, as soon as I get up,One of my heads is sad.”

“Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!”

“Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.”

“He had his choice, and he liked the worst.”

“Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.”

“You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.”

“It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.”