John Ciardi quotes

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. (John Ciardi)
The day will happen whether or not you get up.
John Ciardi
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
John Ciardi
I'm smiled out, talked out, quipped out, socialized so far from any being, I need the weight of mortal silences to get realized back into myself.
John Ciardi
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
John Ciardi
Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.
John Ciardi
Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.
John Ciardi
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.
John Ciardi
The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.
John Ciardi
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
John Ciardi
The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it. (John Ciardi)
The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.
John Ciardi
Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!
John Ciardi
Poetry lies its way to the truth.
John Ciardi
There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.
John Ciardi
What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.
John Ciardi
A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.
John Ciardi
Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.
John Ciardi
A dollar saved is a quarter earned.
John Ciardi
Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.
John Ciardi
It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their conviction. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their convictions. (John Ciardi)
Nothing goes further toward a man's liberation than the act of surviving his need for character.
John Ciardi