388 Quotes by Wallace Stevens

I know noble accentsAnd lucid, inescapable rhythms;But I know, too,That the blackbird is involvedIn what I know.

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.

I do not know which to prefer,The beauty of inflectionsOr the beauty of innuendosThe blackbird whistlingOr just after.

And for what, except for you, do I feel love?Do I press the extremest book of the wisest man Close to me, hidden in me day and night?In the uncertain light of single, certain truth,Equal in living changingness to the lightIn which I meet you, in which we sit at rest,For a moment in the central of our being,The vivid transparence that you bring is peace.

We cannot look at the past or the future except by means of the imagination but again the imagination of backward glances is one thing and the imagination of looks ahead something else. Even the psychologists concede this present particular, for, with them, memory involves a reproductive power, and looks ahead involve a creative power: the power of our expectations.

There would still remain the never-resting mind,So that one would want to escape, come backTo what had been so long composed.The imperfect is our paradise.Note that, in this bitterness, delight,Since the imperfect is so hot in us,Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

We live in an old chaos of the sun.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.