John Ciardi
John Ciardi
John Anthony Ciardiwas an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and directed the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont. In 1959, Ciardi published a book on how to read, write, and teach poetry, How Does a Poem Mean?, which has proven to be among the most-used books of its...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionDramatist
Date of Birth24 June 1916
General rules have been legislated into being by past masters.
The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.
Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what's possible Could reason half the jungle out of being.
Honesty: The ability to resist small temptations.
A carbonated wine foisted upon Americans (who else would drink it?) by winery ad agencies as a way of getting rid of inferior champagne by mixing it with inferior burgundy.
Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.
Patience is the art of caring slowly.
A man is what he does with his attention and mine is not for sale.
At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected, I shall forgive last the delicately wounded who, having been slugged no harder than anyone else, never got up again, neither to fight back, nor to finger their jaws in painful admiration.
Conviction is possible only in a world more primitive than ours can be perceived to be. A man can achieve a simply gnomic conviction only by ignoring the radical describers of his environment, or by hating them, as convinced men have hated, say, Darwin and Freud, as agents of some devil.
I'm smiled out, talked out, quipped out, socialized so far from any being, I need the weight of mortal silences to get realized back into myself.
The public library is the most dangerous place in town
Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said: we're not free spenders- doesn't know our like.
It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their conviction. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their convictions.