Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrellwas an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, novelist, and the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that now bears the title Poet Laureate...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth6 May 1914
CountryUnited States of America
mother dream sleep
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
art long insects
Art is long, and critics are the insects of a day.
oysters pearls
Except from the Americans—but every pearl has its oyster.
men matter men-and-women
I decided that Europeans and Americans are like men and women: they understand each other worse, and it matters less, than either of them suppose.
intelligent dozen honest
If we meet an honest and intelligent politician, a dozen, a hundred, we say they aren't like politicians at all, and our category of politicians stays unchanged; we know what politicians are like.
matter world quarrels
our quarrels with the world are like our quarrels with God: no matter how right we are, we are wrong.
girl dream baby
I shook myself; I was dreaming. As I went to bed the words of the eighth-grade class's teacher, when the class got to Evangeline , kept echoing in my ears: "We're coming to a long poem now, boys and girls. Now don't be babies and start counting the pages." I lay there like a baby, counting the pages over and over, counting the pages.
dark world succeed
The dark, uneasy world of family life - where the greatest can fail and the humblest succeed.
baby book men
More and more people think of the critic as an indispensable middle man between writer and reader, and would no more read a book alone, if they could help it, than have a baby alone.
habit
habits are happiness of a sort...
reality want
Reality is what we want it to be or what we do not want it to be, but it is not our wanting or our not wanting that makes it so.
wish stories beggar
If wishes were stories, beggars would read...
worry caves want
I simply don't want the poems mixed up with my life or opinions or picture or any other regrettable concomitants. I look like a bear and live in a cave; but you should worry.
art occupation matter
Art matters not merely because it is the most magnificent ornament and the most nearly unfailing occupation of our lives, but because it is life itself.