Marianne Moore quotes

A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself. (Marianne Moore)
Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.
Marianne Moore
Superior people never make long visits.
Marianne Moore
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.
Marianne Moore
There never was a war that was not inward I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war.
Marianne Moore
War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.
Marianne Moore
O to be a dragon, a symbol of the power of Heaven - of silkworm size or immense; at times invisible. Felicitous phenomenon!
Marianne Moore
We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic: Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic, None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.
Marianne Moore
Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.
Marianne Moore
Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.
Marianne Moore
Omissions are not accidents. (Marianne Moore)
As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.
Marianne Moore
Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.
Marianne Moore
When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.
Marianne Moore
Everything I have written is the result of reading or of interest in people.
Marianne Moore
I never plan a stanza, words cluster like chromosomes determining the procedure, later, I may influence or thin it.
Marianne Moore
What I write could only be called poetry because there is no other category to put it.
Marianne Moore
We Call Them the Brave who likely were reluctant to be brave.
Marianne Moore
One writes because one has a burning desire to objectify what it is indispensable to one's happiness to express.
Marianne Moore
that which is impossible to force, it is impossible to hinder.
Marianne Moore
Maine should be pleased that its animal is not a waverer, and rather than fight, lets the primed quill fall. Shallow oppressor, intruder, insister, you have found a resister. (Marianne Moore)
A symbol from the first, of mastery, experiments such as Hippocrates made and substituted for vague speculation stayed the ravages of plague.
Marianne Moore
You are not male nor female, but a plan deep-set within the heart of man.
Marianne Moore
What is our innocence, what is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe.
Marianne Moore
So wary as to disappear for centuries and reappear but never caught, the unicorn has been preserved by an unmatched device wrought like the work of expert blacksmiths ...
Marianne Moore