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John Berryman Quotes

American poet and scholar (d. 1972), Birth: 25-10-1914, Death: 7-1-1972 John Berryman Quotes
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

Similar Authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson William Shakespeare C. S. Lewis Rumi Samuel Johnson George Herbert George Eliot Maya Angelou Horace Charles Bukowski John Milton Alexander Pope Ovid Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Sylvia Plath
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

Quote Topics by John Berryman: Writing World Resources Funny Literature Vanity Bored Mean Song Self Skins Talking Poet Understood Sky Lucky Reason Ruthless Great Literature Motivational Artist Important Mother Heart Inspirational Yeats Ideas Tasks Children Smart
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