175 Quotes by Marianne Moore

When one is frank, one’s very presence is a compliment.

I never ‘plan’ a stanza. Words cluster like chromosomes, determining the procedure.

We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained in conformity with earth’s and with heaven’s logic: Be the devil’s tool, resort to black magic, None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.

One must be as clear as one’s natural reticence allows one to be.

Words cluster like chromosomes, determining the procedure.

One detects creative power by its capacity to conquer one’s detachment.

The cynics in life are the people who are always trying to do things for people who don’t want things done for them.

When we think we don’t like art it is because it is artificial art.

When one cannot appraise out of one’s own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.