140 Quotes by Randall Jarrell

It's ugly, but is it art?

I have found that Lost World in the Lost and FoundColumns whose gray illegible advertisementsMy soul has memorized world after world:LOST - NOTHING. STRAYED FROM NOWHERE. NO REWARD.

I see at last that all the knowledgeI wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darknessAnd we call it wisdom. It is pain.

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

There is something essentially ridiculous about critics, anyway: what is good is good without our saying so, and beneath all our majesty we know this.

Wisdom, said William James,Is learning what to overlook. And I am wiseIf that is wisdom.

When I was young and miserable and prettyAnd poor, I'd wishWhat all girls wish: to have a husband,A house and children. Now that I'm old, my wishIs womanish:That the boy putting groceries in my carSee me.

Here where North, the night, the berg of deathCrowd me out of the ignorant darkness,I see at last that all the knowledge I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

Really I began the dayNot with a man's wish: "May this day be different,"But with the birds' wish: "May this dayBe the same day, the day of my life.