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

— John Ashbery

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More quotes by John Ashbery

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

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.

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.

The Paris Review (1983)

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

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

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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.