58 Quotes by John Berryman

General Fatigue stalked in, & a Major-General,Captain Fatigue, and at the base of allpale Corporal Fatigue,and curious microbes came, came viruses:and the Court conferred on Henry, and conferred on Henrythe rare Order of Weak.

You come in all clammed up, defences in depth, alibi-systems long established, delusions full-blown. In order to have a chance of staying sober, or rather of staying dry and becoming sober, you've got to change. Nobody likes to change. What you really want, when you come into hospital, even for the second or third or ninth time, is to stay just who you are and not drink. That's not possible, of course. Jack-Who-Drinks has got to alter into Jack-Who-Does-Not-Drink-And-Likes-It.

They say we have weak wills. Do you know about the two drunks who went to the film of The Lost Weekend. Came out staggering. "My God I'll never take another drink," said the first. "My God I'll never go to another movie." How's that for commitment?

That baby has got to learn thingsincluding remaining erect & on deck & all,her study of herself must include no wings.She's sturdy, beautiful, & she will do, unlessthe universal homage turns her headas it might well do mine,hypnotized by the Little Baby...

Goodbye, sir, & fare well. You’re in the clear.

Love her he doesn't but the thought he putsinto that young womanwould launch a national productcomplete with TV spots & skywritingoutlets in Bonn & TokyoI mean it

There was a time that crepuscular was mild,The hour for tea, acquaintances, and fallAway of day's difficulties, allDiscouragement. Weep, you are not a child.

During those years he met his seminars,went & lectured & read, talked with human beings,paid insurance & taxes;but his mind was not on it. his mind was elsewheresin an area where the soul not talks but sings& where foes are attacked with axes.

Yeats knew nothing about life: it was all symbols& Wordsworthian egotism: Yeats on Cemetery Ridgewould not have been scared, like you & me,he would have been, before the bullet that was his,studying the movements of the birds,said disappointed & amazed Henry.