140 Quotes by Randall Jarrell

It is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life

We can't tell our life from our wish

I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine- tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry

It is always hard for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend but because their poems are bad.

In the United States, there one feels free... Except from the Americans - but every pearl has its oyster.

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all.

If we meet an honest and intelligent politician, a dozen, a hundred, we say they aren't like politicians at all, and our category of politicians stays unchanged; we know what politicians are like.

He thinks that Schiller and St Paul were just two Partisan Review editors.