388 Quotes by Wallace Stevens

Reality is a cliché from which we escape by metaphor.

One must read poetry with one's nerves.

The exceeding brightness of this early sunMakes me conceive how dark I have become.

The poem must resist the intelligenceAlmost successfully.

Poetry is an abstraction bloodied.

Let be be finale of seem.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential.

After the leaves have fallen, we returnTo a plain sense of things. It is as ifWe had come to an end of the imagination,Inanimate in an inert savoir.

A pear should come to the table popped with juice,Ripened in warmth and served in warmth. On termsLike these, autumn beguiles the fatalist.