81 Quotes by John Ciardi

Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what’s possible Could reason half the jungle out of being.

There’s nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.

Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said: we’re not free spenders- doesn’t know our like.

Such perfect incompleteness, suggestion and ambiguity are among the most valuable devices of the skilled poet, means by which the poem opens to let us in.

Translator’s Note: When the violin repeats what the piano has just played, it cannot make the same sounds and it can only approximate the same chords. It can, however, make recognizably the same “music”, the same air. But it can do so only when it is as faithful to the self-logic of the violin as it is to the self-logic of the piano.

A man is what he does with his attention.

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

Every word has a history. Every word has an image locked into its roots.

The fact that a good poem will never wholly submit to explanation is not its deficiency but its very life. One lives every day what he cannot define. It is feeling that is first. What one cannot help but sense in good poetry is a sense of the whole language stirring toward richer possibilities than one could have foreseen.