I think these days when there is so little to believe in——when the old loyalties——God, country, and the hope of Heaven——aren't very real, we are more dependent than we should be on our friends. The only thing left to believe in——someone who seems beautiful.

William Carlos Williams

One thing I am convinced more and more is true, and that is this: The only way to be truly happy is to make others happy. When you realize that and take advantage of the fact, everything is made perfect.

William Carlos Williams

make-others-happy optimistic perfect

It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.

William Carlos Williams

secret age lying

It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

William Carlos Williams

news poetry men

Sometimes I find myself thinking, rather wistfully, about Lao Tzu's famous dictum: 'Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.' All around me I see something very different, let us say - a number of angry dwarfs trying to grill a whale.

William Carlos Williams

whales numbers thinking

First we have to see. Or first we have to be taught to see. We have to be taught to see here, because here is everywhere, related to everywhere else, and if we don't see, hear, taste, smell and feel in this place - not only will we never know anything but the world of sense will be by that much diminished everywhere.

William Carlos Williams

smell taught world

The job of the poet is to use language effectively, his own language, the only language which is to him authentic.

William Carlos Williams

language use jobs

The weight of love Has buoyed me up Till my head Knocks against the sky.

William Carlos Williams

weight sky love

There is nothing beginning nor end to the imagination but it delights in its own seasons reversing the usual order at will.

William Carlos Williams

usual imagination order

As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.

William Carlos Williams

birds-wings air reality

My first poem was a bolt from the blue … it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence. ... it filled me with soul satisfying joy.

William Carlos Williams

suicidal blue joy

It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.

William Carlos Williams

sweaters fairs brown

Somewhere the sense makes copper roses steel roses — The rose carried weight of love but love is at an end — of roses It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.

William Carlos Williams

flower love romantic

Compose. (No ideas

William Carlos Williams

thoughtful flower thinking

But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn't declaim or explain, it presents.

William Carlos Williams

poetry sensual art

What power has love but forgiveness?

William Carlos Williams

power-of-forgiveness forgiveness

I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.

William Carlos Williams

disease writing thinking

We sit and talk quietly, with long lapses of silence, and I am aware of the stream that has no language, coursing beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes, which has no speech.

William Carlos Williams

silence eye long

In summer, the song sings itself.

William Carlos Williams

nature summer song

The poem springs from the half spoken words of the patient.... When asked, how I have for so many years continued an equal interest in medicine and the poem, I reply that they amount for me to nearly the same thing.

William Carlos Williams

medicine spring years

A poem is a small machine made out of words.

William Carlos Williams

machines made