Marianne Moore Quotes

Omissions are not accidents.

In a poem the words should be as pleasing to the ear as the meaning is to the mind.

As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.

The mind is an enchanting thing.

The hands are the heart’s messengers.

If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try.

Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt.

When one cannot appraise out of one’s own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

There never was a war that was not inward.

One detects creative power by its capacity to conquer one’s detachment.

You’re not free until you’ve been made captive by supreme belief.

There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war.

When you take my time, you take something I had meant to use.

It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing.

Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.

Poetry is all nouns and verbs.

If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.

When one is frank, one’s very presence is a compliment.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

Originality is… a by-product of sincerity.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence.

A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.

We are suffering from too much sarcasm.