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It isn’t what he says that counts as a work of art, it’s what he makes, with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity.

— William Carlos Williams The Wedge (1944)

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More quotes by William Carlos Williams

There’s nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words.

The Wedge (1944)

Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken.

Spring and All (1923)

Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

The Wedge (1944)

It's a strange courage
you give me ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!

Al Que Quiere! (1917)

Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matters like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.

The Wedge (1944)

All William Carlos Williams quotes →

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