Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms. Stanley Kunitz More Quotes by Stanley Kunitz More Quotes From Stanley Kunitz The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers. Stanley Kunitz quiver universe whole I can hardly wait for tomorrow, it means a new life for me each and every day. Stanley Kunitz new-life waiting mean When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself... That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitiude for the gift of life. Stanley Kunitz expression art thinking Be what you are. Give What is yours to give. Have Style. Dare. Stanley Kunitz dare style giving The poem comes in the form of a blessing, like rapture breaking on the mind. Stanley Kunitz form blessing mind We have to learn how to live with our frailties. The best people I know are inadequate and unashamed. Stanley Kunitz frailty knows people Poetry is ultimately mythology, the telling of stories of the soul. The old myths, the old gods, the old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our minds, waiting for our call. We have need of them, for in their sum they epitomize the wisdom and experience of the race. Stanley Kunitz race hero sleep I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world. Stanley Kunitz dream writing art You must be careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin. Stanley Kunitz careful be-careful I have walked through many lives, Stanley Kunitz my-own principles struggle Deftly they opened the brain of a child, and it was full of flying dreams. Stanley Kunitz flying dream children The poem in the head is always perfect. Resistance begins when you try to convert it into language. Stanley Kunitz resistance perfect trying A poem has secrets that the poet knows nothing of. Stanley Kunitz poet secret knows End with an image and don't explain. Stanley Kunitz ends writing I dance/for the joy of surviving, at the edge of the road. Stanley Kunitz surviving survival joy In a murderous time/the heart breaks and breaks/and lives by breaking. Stanley Kunitz heart-break break heart In every house of marriage there's room for an interpreter. Stanley Kunitz marriage house rooms Rhythm to me is essentially what Hopkins called the taste of self. I taste myself as rhythm. Stanley Kunitz rhythm taste self We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection. Stanley Kunitz garden perfection dream The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking it is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and not to turn Stanley Kunitz break dark heart
