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The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams QUOTES

The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams QUOTES

1 " 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

2 " Do we not see that we are inarticulate? That is what defeats us. It is our inability to communicate to another how we are locked within ourselves, unable to say the simplest thing of importance to one another, any of us, even the most valuable, that makes our lives like those of a litter of kittens in a wood-pile. "

― William Carlos Williams , The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams

3 " Mother, who was known among her intimates as a medium, suddenly said to my father, looking right and left at Ed and me, “So these are the boys. How they have grown. Come here, my dears,” she said to us, reaching out her hands, “and let me see you!” This to her own children whom she had been caring for all day. Pop, who was accustomed to such occasions, told us gently, bewildered as we must have been, to do as we were bid—to go to Mother, which we did, one on either side. She put her hands on each of our heads and patted us with smiles of approval and loving affection. “How well they look. I am so happy.” At this Pop said to her, to his own wife, “Who is this we have the pleasure of talking to?” “Don’t you know me?” Mother answered. “Why I’m Lou Paine. "

― William Carlos Williams , The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams

4 " Pop told me many times after that that he had sent a wire forthwith to Jesse Paine, an old friend and neighbor of ours from Passaic Avenue, then residing in Los Angeles, asking what, if anything, had happened to Lou, his wife. Two weeks later he received a letter saying that Jesse was sorry not to have been able to answer the telegram sooner, the reason being that Lou had been ill; in fact at the time the telegram had arrived, she was in the hospital where, that day, she had been given up for dead, following a serious abdominal operation "

― William Carlos Williams , The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams

5 " Up to then, neither Mother nor Pop had any immediate church connections, but used to meet with a few others at spiritualistic seances, sometimes at home, sometimes elsewhere around the block. A prime mover in this form of religious service was old man Demarest, a devout believer. The chief tenet of these earnest persons was that the dead did live as spirits about us and would come or could be called to us at certain times by prayer or otherwise. There were curious consequences. "

― William Carlos Williams , The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams