1.
Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.
John Berryman
2.
The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.
John Berryman
3.
We must travel in the direction of our fear.
John Berryman
4.
So if I were talking to a young writer, I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.
John Berryman
5.
Two daiquiris withdrew into a corner of a gorgeous room and one told the other a lie.
John Berryman
6.
Praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.
John Berryman
7.
You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.
John Berryman
8.
I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.
John Berryman
9.
I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.
John Berryman
10.
Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.
John Berryman
11.
That is our ‘pointed task. Love & die.
John Berryman
12.
This world is gradually becoming a place Where I do not care to be any more.
John Berryman
13.
I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature.
John Berryman
14.
We are using our own skins for wallpaper and we cannot win.
John Berryman
15.
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored means you have no inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
John Berryman
16.
These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand. They are only meant to terrify & comfort.
John Berryman
17.
I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats.
John Berryman
18.
Them lady poets must not marry, pal.
John Berryman
19.
I can offer you only: this world like a knife
John Berryman
20.
One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be.
John Berryman
21.
something has been said for sobriety but very little.
John Berryman
22.
There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).
John Berryman
23.
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
John Berryman
24.
Literature bores me, especially great literature
John Berryman
25.
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn
John Berryman
26.
We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place.
John Berryman
27.
Offering Dragons quarter is no good, they regrow all their parts and come on again. They have to be killed.
John Berryman
28.
Wishin' was dyin' but I gotta make it all this way to that bed on these feet.
John Berryman
29.
I think that what happens in my poetic work in the future will depend on my being knocked in the face, and thrown flat, and given cancer, and all kinds of other things short of senile dementia.
John Berryman
30.
I cry. Evil dissolves, & love, like foam; that love. Prattle of children powers me home, my heart claps like the swan's under a frenzy of who love me & who shine.
John Berryman