Skip to content

When I originally started writing, I expected that probably very few people would read my poetry because in those days people didn’t read poetry much anyway.

— John Ashbery The Paris Review (1983)

Another quote →

Topics

Books

More quotes by John Ashbery

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

Did I say that? One says so many things, and the problem is they all get written down.

These two guys in the front yard—
Are they here to help?

April Galleons (1987)

The summer demands and takes away too much.
But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes.

All John Ashbery quotes →

You may also like

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Ashbery (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.