Home > Author > William Carlos Williams
1 " We sit and talk,quietly, with long lapses of silenceand I am aware of the streamthat has no language, coursingbeneath the quiet heaven ofyour eyeswhich has no speech "
― William Carlos Williams , Paterson
2 " You lethargic, waiting upon me,waiting for the fire and Iattendant upon you, shaken by your beautyShaken by your beauty Shaken. "
3 " Your thighs are appletrees. Your knees are a southern breeze. "
― William Carlos Williams , The Farmers' Daughters
4 " It is at the edge of the petal that love waits "
― William Carlos Williams , Spring and All
5 " If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem. "
― William Carlos Williams
6 " so much dependsupona red wheelbarrowglazed with rainwaterbeside the whitechickens. "
7 " beauty’ is related not to ‘loveliness’ but to a state in which reality plays a part. "
8 " The business of love is cruelty which,by our wills, we transform to live together. "
9 " For the beginning is assuredlythe end- since we know nothing, pureand simple, beyondour own complexities. "
10 " I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it. "
11 " Time is a storm in which we are all lost. "
12 " All women are not Helen, I know that, but have Helen in their hearts. "
13 " The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. "
― William Carlos Williams , Howl and Other Poems
14 " To imitate nature involves the verb to do. To copy is merely to reflect something already there, inertly: Shakespeare's mirror is all that is needed for it. But by imitation we enlarge nature itself, we become nature or we discover in ourselves nature's active part. "
― William Carlos Williams , The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams
15 " There is nothing sacred about literature, it is damned from one end to the other. There is nothing in literature but change and change is mockery. I'll write whatever I damn please, whenever I damn please and as I damn please and it'll be good if the authentic spirit of change is on it. "
― William Carlos Williams , Kora in Hell
16 " What power has love but forgiveness?In other wordsby its interventionwhat has been donecan be undone.What good is it otherwise? "
17 " Imagination though it cannot wipe out the sting of remorse can instruct the mind in its proper uses. "
18 " But the seawhich no one tendsis also a garden "
― William Carlos Williams , Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems
19 " I would say poetry is language charged with emotion. It's words, rhythmically organized . . . A poem is a complete little universe. It exists separately. Any poem that has any worth expresses the whole life of the poet. It gives a view of what the poet is. "
20 " A man is indeed a city, and for the poet there are no ideas but in things. "
