90 Quotes by Charles Simic

Poems are other people's snapshots in which we see our own lives.

To submit to chance is to reveal the self and its obsessions.

The poem I want to write is impossible. A stone that floats.

There are knives that glitter like altars In a dark church Where they bring the cripple and the imbecile To be healed. There's a woden block where bones are broken, Scraped clean--a river dried to its bed

When you play chess alone it's always your move.

I'm not a stickler for truth. To me, lying in poetry is much more fun. I'm against lying in life, in principle, in any other activity except poetry.

I left parts of myself everywhere, The way absent-minded people leave Gloves and umbrellas Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck

There are people who live inside their heads and their intellects. It's something one is born with and stuck with. It's not something you make a decision about.

The stars know everything, So we try to read their minds. As distant as they are, We choose to whisper in their presence.