46 Quotes by Richard Wilbur

Limitation makes for power. The strength of the genie comes of his being confined in a bottle.

Writing poetry is talking to oneself; yet it is a mode of talking to oneself in which the self disappears; and the product's something that, though it may not be for everybody, is about everybody.

Yes, death is far less dire to contemplateThan a forced marriage to an unloved mate

In my kind world the dead were out of rangeAnd I could not forgive the sad or strangeIn beast or man.

Outside the open windowThe morning air is all awash with angels.

If the king had given me for my ownParis, his citadel,And I for that must leave aloneHer whom I love so well,I'd say then to the CrownTake back your glittering townMy darling is more fair, I swear.My darling is more fair.

I die of thirst here at the fountainside.

That's what (Hill) died for, the right for people to protest. But I don't think a funeral is the right place or context in the way they are protesting. It's not something the family needs to hear, that we're glad your son's dead and that your minister is a whore.

To this congress the poet speaks not of peculiar and personal things, but of what in himself is most common, most anonymous, most fundamental, most true of all men.