I have never been one to write by rule, not even by my own rules. William Carlos Williams More Quotes by William Carlos Williams More Quotes From William Carlos Williams all to no end save beauty William Carlos Williams humanity beautiful beauty THE THOUGHTFUL LOVER Deny yourself all half things. Have it or leave it. But it will keep—or it is not worth the having. Never start anything you can't finish— However do not lose faith because you are starved! She loves you she says. Believe it —tomorrow. But today the particulars of poetry that difficult art require your whole attention. William Carlos Williams love-you believe art What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise? William Carlos Williams intervention forgiveness done A poem is a small machine made of words. . .Its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character. William Carlos Williams machines movement character You have the chicken, the hen, and the rooster. The chicken goes with the hen So who is having sex with the rooster? William Carlos Williams roosters hens sex The only human value of anything, writing included, is intense vision of the facts. William Carlos Williams vision writing facts Love is a young green willow shimmering at the bare wood's edge William Carlos Williams woods green love-is So different, this man And this woman: A stream flowing In a field. William Carlos Williams different fields men and there grows in the mind a scent, it may be, of locust blossoms whose perfume is itself a wind moving to lead the mind away. William Carlos Williams mind wind moving The American idiom has much to offer us that the English language has never heard of William Carlos Williams idiom language heard Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to realise his wishes- Now that he can realise them, he must either change them or perish William Carlos Williams ignorant wish men Say it, no ideas but in things - nothing but the blank faces of the houses and cylindrical trees bent, forked by preconception and accident - split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained - secret - into the body of the light! William Carlos Williams light house ideas What can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past. William Carlos Williams failure vision past One by one the objects are defined? It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance?Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken. William Carlos Williams dignity down-and profound Among of green stiff old bright broken branch come white sweet May again William Carlos Williams broken white sweet A profusion of pink roses being ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring. William Carlos Williams flower compassion rain By listening to his language of his locality the poet begins to learn his craft. It is his function to lift, by use of imagination and the language he hears, the material conditions and appearances of his environment to the sphere of the intelligence where they will have new currency. William Carlos Williams imagination use listening I pick the hair from her eyes and watch her misery with compassion. William Carlos Williams eye compassion hair But the thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is always one: the virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses, close to the nose. It is this difficulty that sets a value upon all works of art and makes them a necessity. The senses witnessing what is immediately before them in detail see a finality which they cling to in despair, not knowing which way to turn. Thus this so-called natural or scientific array becomes fixed, the walking devil of modern life. William Carlos Williams writing lying art through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. William Carlos Williams metaphor stones people
