Ben Lerner Quotes
Poetry arises from the desire to get beyond the finite and the historical—the human world of violence and difference—and to reach the transcendent or divine. You're moved to write a poem, you feel called upon to sing, because of that transcendent impulse. But as soon as you move from that impulse to the actual poem, the song of the infinite is compromised by the finitude of its terms.
Quotes to Explore
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It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.
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I don't sing anything that hurts my voice.
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I think what will happen is that fiction will become more like poetry. As in, the only people who read it will write it.
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Citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance, their irredentism and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats.
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I didn't know how to weigh ideas about poetry. Nothing in the life I lived as a student - and later as wife and mother at the suburban edge of Dublin - suggested I had the wherewithal to do so. But I did have a unit of measurement. It was the measure of my own life.
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A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned.
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Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another.
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The motto of his Robinson Jeffers’s work is 'More! More!'-but as Tolstoy says, 'A wee bit omitted, overemphasized, or exaggerated in poetry, and there is no contagion'; and Frost, bearing him out, says magnificently: 'A very little of anything goes a long way in a work of art.'
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Trying to make a living from poetry is like putting chains on butterfly wings.
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The rules of sexism do not free men from the terror of violence; they only keep men from complaining about it.
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When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.
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My poetry is the most disappointing thing for me that I've ever written. When I say I can write everything, I don't say I can write everything well.
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My friends never talk to me about my poetry because they're embarrassed that I write it or they're embarrassed by what I write about which are not such extraordinarily terrifying things, but they are the state of human existence.
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What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man's soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.
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I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords. That was my original mission.
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I enjoy doing action a lot more because my films have a sense of violence. That's because I have a broad structure, and if I hit someone, it looks believable. Maybe my contemporaries are meeker-looking in comparison.
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I studied English at the College of Wooster in Ohio, and I did an M.F.A. in Poetry at Columbia.
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I like it when someone gives me a new book of poetry by a poet I haven't read.
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It really is true that when an issue becomes pop culture, it changes faster, and it's really great for the issue.
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The toughest thing is facing yourself. Being honest with yourself, that's much tougher than beating someone up. That's what I call tough.
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My grandmother had six kids - one died as an infant - and she was dirt-poor, and all her kids got an education. And my mom grew up poor. And they both worked so hard and cultivated so much of their own happiness. I wanted to have that like an amulet. Not like armor, but like a magic feather. Like Dumbo's magic feather.
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So many people know about the dangers of sunbeds but when you have a busy active lifestyle you need a product that you can use quickly and doesn't streak or leave you with orange hands.
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Poetry arises from the desire to get beyond the finite and the historical—the human world of violence and difference—and to reach the transcendent or divine. You're moved to write a poem, you feel called upon to sing, because of that transcendent impulse. But as soon as you move from that impulse to the actual poem, the song of the infinite is compromised by the finitude of its terms.
