46 Quotes by William Matthews

I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"]

...Listen, / my wary one, it's far too late / to unlove each other.

It's a very, very popular exhibition, regularly drawing capacity crowds.

His biggest accomplishment was being a fabulous son to me. He gave the world's best hugs. Our focus is just that he was wonderful, that people loved him and that he will be sorely, sorely missed.

How are they going to expect the UAW to come to the bargaining table and make any concessions without management making some sacrifices and cutting the dividend?

As frost, raised to its utmost intensity, produces the sensation of fire, so any good quality, overwrought and pushed to excess, turns into its own contrary.

Unless a man has trained himself for his chance, the chance will only make him ridiculous.

One wellcultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration-to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

The power of music that poetry lacks is the ability to persuade without argument.