39 Quotes by Thomas M. Disch

Poets are regarded as handicapped writers whose work must be treated with a tender condescension, such as one accords the athletic achievements of basketball players confined to wheelchairs.

Gender and the complications it gives rise to simply aren’t relevant to the lives appliances lead.

Sameness is what marketers want us to want.

The gods, after all, are only human, and once their rage has been placated they are perfectly capable of acts of mercy and grace.

The distances between the stars seem brief by contrast to the distances between each of us and his fellows.

A predilection for genre fiction is symptomatic of a kind of arrested development.

It considered trying to explain their error to them, but what would be the use? They would only go away with hurt feelings. You can’t always expect people, or squirrels, to be rational.

For a lot of people, poetry tends to be dull. It’s not read much. It takes a special kind of training and a lot of practice to read poetry with pleasure. It’s like learning to like asparagus.

Knowledge is devalued when it becomes too generally known.