90 Quotes by Charles Simic

A poem is an invitation to a voyage. As in life, we travel to see fresh sights.

When people ask me how to find happiness in life I tell them, First learn how to cook.

If the sky falls they shall have clouds for supper.

I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!

The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The short poem rejects preamble and summary. It's about all and everything, the metaphysics of a few words surrounded by much silence. …The short poem is a match flaring up in a dark universe.

The truth is dark under your eyelids.

Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.

I do believe that a poem needs to remind the reader of his or her own humanity, of what they are, of what they're capable of. Awaken them, in a sense, to the fact that there's a world in front of their eyes, that they have a body, they're going to die, the sky is beautiful, it's fun to be in a grassy field when the sun is shining—those kinds of things.