Joe DiMaggio batting sometimes gave the impression, the suggestion that the old rules and dimensions of baseball no longer applied to him, and that the game had at last grown unfairly easy. Donald Hall More Quotes by Donald Hall More Quotes From Donald Hall We made in those days tiny identical rooms inside our bodies which the men who uncover our graves will find in a thousand years shining and whole. Donald Hall shining men years Can build plane... Delivery about three months. Donald Hall aviation three months Each year the big garden grew smaller and Jane - who grew flowers by choice, not corn or stringbeans - worked at the vegetables more than I did. Each winter I dreamed crops, dreamed marvels of canning . . . and each summer I largely failed. Shamefaced, I planted no garden at all. Donald Hall failure flower summer We approached Athens from the north in early twilight, climbing a hill. When we reached its peak, we were dazzled to look down and see the Acropolis struck by one beam of the setting sun, as if posing for a picture. Donald Hall picture look hill sun Friends die, friends become demented, friends quarrel, friends drift with old age into silence. Donald Hall die old-age silence age On September twentieth every year, I got to choose my menu - meatloaf, corn niblets, and rice were followed by candles on chocolate cake with vanilla icing and a scoop of Brock-Hall ice cream. Donald Hall choose ice-cream cake chocolate My problem isn't death but old age. I fret about my lack of balance, my buckling knee, my difficulty standing up and sitting down. Donald Hall old-age balance age death Each season, my balance gets worse, and sometimes I fall. I no longer cook for myself but microwave widower food, mostly Stouffer's. My fingers are clumsy and slow with buttons. Donald Hall myself balance food sometimes I expect my immortality will last about six seconds after my funeral. Donald Hall expect last will immortality My parents were willing to let me follow my nose, do what I wanted to do, and they supported my interest by buying the books that I wanted for birthdays and Christmas, almost always poetry books. Donald Hall parents me christmas poetry When I lived summers at my grandparents' farm, haying with my grandfather from 1938 to 1945, my dear grandmother Kate cooked abominably. For noon dinners, we might eat three days of fricasseed chicken from a setting hen that had boiled twelve hours. Donald Hall farm chicken three grandfather New poems no longer come to me with their prodigies of metaphor and assonance. Prose endures. I feel the circles grow smaller, and old age is a ceremony of losses, which is, on the whole, preferable to dying at forty-seven or fifty-two. Donald Hall feel me old-age age When it comes to poetry, I think partly the numbers of people attempting to write poems is probably a result or the reaction to technology. Donald Hall think technology poetry people As I look at the barn in my ninth decade, I see the no-smoking sign, rusted and tilting on the unpainted gray clapboard. My grandfather, born in 1875, milked his cattle there a century ago. Donald Hall see look born grandfather Prose is not so dependent on sound. The line of poetry, with the breaking of the line - to me, sound is the kind of doorway into poetry. And my sense of sound, or my ability to control it, lapsed or grew less. Donald Hall control me poetry sound I really feel better about aging at the age of 86 than I did at 70. Donald Hall feel better aging age Obviously, death is ahead of me. I don't look forward to dying one little bit. But, you know, I simply don't worry about it because it's going to happen to me as it does to anybody. Donald Hall look me you death I have seen so many poets who were famous, who won all sorts of prizes, disappear with their death. I write as good as I can and don't try to turn that into some hope for a future that I could never know. Donald Hall good future hope death Everything important always begins from something trivial. Donald Hall everything always important wisdom After a couple of years of public high school, I went to Exeter - an insane conglomeration of adolescent males in the wilderness, all of whom claimed to hate poetry. Donald Hall high-school hate poetry school
