W. S. Merwin Quotes
Certain words now in our knowledge we will not use again, and we will never forget them. We need them. Like the back of the picture.
Quotes to Explore
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I'm not sure if being known opened or closed doors for me.
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So long as you create laws that define women as victims, as creatures that demand protection, that need bodyguards, you are going to perpetuate the very worst of our sexist past.
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Food production has affected the environment more than any other activity humans have engaged in. Humanity devotes more land to food production than anything else - roughly a third of the surface area of the earth, much of which was once forest but has been converted by humans into farms or grazing lands.
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The American people know something is wrong as far as energy is concerned. They don't think they are being told the truth.
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I don't know the right way to retire.
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Italy and France could lop off their excessive wealth through a one-time tax on private wealth.
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I am a very selfish person.
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I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.
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The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I.
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I went to art school, I think it helped me a great deal because it taught me who I am.
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Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't finish college. Too much emphasis is placed on formal education - I told my children not to worry about their grades but to enjoy learning.
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The role model approach to social change is no substitute for challenging unjust employment practices, educational policies and housing.
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I would love to be a professional athlete. When I was living in Mexico as a teenager, I did seven years of gymnastics and went to the Junior Olympics. I was getting to the level of going to the international competitions, but I was only 14, and my parents were really worried because they did not want that to be my life.
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When you're young, you're stupid.
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Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.
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A feminist is a person who believes in the power of women just as much as they believe in the power of anyone else. It's equality, it's fairness, and I think it's a great thing to be a part of.
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Different astronauts sleep in different ways.
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A pulp story without a detective and, obviously, somebody for him to do battle with is unthinkable, and I can't remember reading a pulp story that didn't have a dame - either a good girl or a bad girl.
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Movies tie things up in an arbitrary length of time, but I have always liked things that aren't fully realised.
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If the rules of a language are followed, words usually make sense. But these very rules can stir the impulse to rebel. We're obliged to keep trying to convey meaning through correct sentences. After a while, the good-soldier rigidity of polished prose can begin to seem dull, and it gets harder to resist the temptation of nonsense.
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Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
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It was once people began taking my picture every time I left the house - because it's an easy fashion shot - that I started getting a bit weirder about going out without any makeup on, and I think that's when I started wearing foundation every day.
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War is very uncertain in its results, and often when affairs look most desperate they suddenly assume a more hopeful state.
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Certain words now in our knowledge we will not use again, and we will never forget them. We need them. Like the back of the picture.
