Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror QUOTES

1 " Its a bit mad. Too bad, I mean, that getting to know each just for a fleeting second
Must be replaced by unperfect knowledge of the featureless whole
Like some pocket history of the world, so general
As to constitute a sob or wail "

― John Ashbery , Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

3 " It is the lumps and trials
That tell us whether we shall be known
And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star. "

― John Ashbery , Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

5 " The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes "

― John Ashbery , Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

7 " Some day we will try
To do as many things as are possible
And perhaps we shall succeed at a handful
Of them, but this will not have anything
To do with what is promised today, our
Landscape sweeping out from us to disappear
On the horizon. "

― John Ashbery , Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror