E. E. Cummings quotes - page 9

She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still. (E. E. Cummings)
Dog hates mouse and worships "cat", mouse despises "cat" and hates dog, "cat" hates no one and loves mouse. View quote
E. E. Cummings
In other words, you don't want to be serious- It takes two to be serious. View quote
E. E. Cummings
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. View quote
E. E. Cummings
The sensical law of this world is might makes right; the nonsensical law of our heroine is love conquers all. View quote
E. E. Cummings
Here life is, moves; faintly. A wrist. The faint throb of blood, precise, miraculous . . . View quote
E. E. Cummings
As for a few trifling delusions like the "past" and "present" and "future" of quote mankind unquote,they may be big enough for a couple of billion supermechanized submorons but they're much too small for one human being. View quote
E. E. Cummings
This hero and villain no more understand Krazy Kat than the mythical denizens of a two dimensional realm understand some three dimensional intruder. View quote
E. E. Cummings
Art is a mystery. A mystery is something immeasurable. In so far as every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery of every man and woman and child. In so far as a human being is an artist, skies and mountains and oceans and thunderbolts and butterflies are immeasurable; and art is every mystery of nature. View quote
E. E. Cummings
There are certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them. View quote
E. E. Cummings
as small as a world and as large as alone For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea. (E. E. Cummings)
The All which is beyond comprehension - the All which is perpetually discovered, yet undiscovered: sexual, sweet, Alive! View quote
E. E. Cummings
To our softhearted altruist, she is the adorably helpless incarnation of saintliness. To our hardhearted egoist, she is the puzzlingly indestructible embodiment of idiocy. The benevolent overdog sees her as an inspired weakling. The malevolent undermouse views her as a born target. Meanwhile Krazy Kat, through this double misunderstanding, fulfills her joyous destiny. View quote
E. E. Cummings
i will wade out till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air Alive with closed eyes to dash against darkness in the sleeping curves of my body. View quote
E. E. Cummings
down with hell and heaven and all the religious fuss infinity pleased our parents one inch looks good to us. View quote
E. E. Cummings
... A good Book, has no Ending... View quote
E. E. Cummings
down with ought with because with every brain that thinks it thinks nor dares to feel. View quote
E. E. Cummings
Awake, chaos:we have napped. View quote
E. E. Cummings
concerning this selfstyled world's greatest and most generous literary figure: who had just arrived in our nation's capitol, attired in half a GI uniform and ready to be hanged as a traitor by the only country which ever made even a pretense of fighting for freedom of speech Re Ezra Pound - poetry happens to be an art; and artists happen to be human beings. View quote
E. E. Cummings
when you confuse art with propaganda, you confuse an act of God with something which can be turned on and off like the hot water faucet. If "God" means nothing to you(or less than nothing)I'll cheerfully substitute one of your own favorite words,"freedom." View quote
E. E. Cummings
My theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. "Would you hit a woman with a child? (E. E. Cummings)
my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world. View quote
E. E. Cummings
An artist doesn't live in some geographical abstraction, superimposed on a part of this beautiful earth by the nonimagination of unanimals and dedicated to the proposition that massacre is a social virtue because murder is an individual vice. Nor does an artist live in some soi-disant world, nor does he live in some so-called universe, nor does he live in any number of "worlds" or in any number of "universes." View quote
E. E. Cummings
So, ungentle reader, (as you and I value what we should ashamed-after witnessing a few minor circus-marvels-to call our "lives,") let us never be fooled into taking seriously that perfectly superficial distinction which is vulgarly drawn between the circus-show and "art" or "the arts." Let us not forget that every authentic "work of art" is in and of itself alive and that, however "the arts" may differ among themselves, their common function is the expression of that supreme alive-ness which is known as "beauty." View quote
E. E. Cummings
Your poems are rather hard to understand, whereas your paintings are so easy. Easy? Of course-you paint flowers and girls and sunsets; things that everybody understands. I never met him. Who? Everybody. Did you ever hear of nonrepresentational painting? I am. Pardon me? I am a painter, and painting is nonrepresentational. Not all painting. No: housepainting is representational. And what does a housepainter represent? Ten dollars an hour. In other words, you don't want to be serious- It takes two to be serious. View quote
E. E. Cummings