Curt Simmons > Curt's Quotes

“T.S. Eliot said to me 'There’s only one way a poet can develop his actual writing – apart from self-criticism & continual practice. And that is by reading other poetry aloud – and it doesn’t matter whether he understands it or not (i.e. even if it’s in another language.) What matters above all, is educating the ear.' What matters, is to connect your own voice with an infinite range of verbal cadences & sequences – and only endless actual experience of your ear can store all that in your nervous system. The rest can be left to your life & your character.”
― Ted Hughes, Letters of Ted Hughes

“There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned the lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.”
― Jack London, The Call of the Wild

“Somewhere between love and hate lies confusion, misunderstanding and desperate hope.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“They have the unique ability to listen to one story and understand another.”
― Pandora Poikilos, Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out

“Thus with most careful devotion
Thus with precise attention
To detail, interfering preparation
Of that which is already prepared
Men tighten the knot of confusion
Into perfect misunderstanding.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Family Reunion

“O Divine Poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song of the various-minded man who, after he had plundered the innermost citadel of hallowed Troy, was made to stay grievously about the coasts of men, the sport of their customs, good and bad, while his heart, through all the sea-faring, ached with an agony to redeem himself and bring his company safe home. Vain hope – for them. The fools! Their own witlessness cast them aside. To destroy for meat the oxen of the most exalted Sun, wherefore the Sun-god blotted out the day of their return. Make this tale live for us in all its many bearings, O Muse.” – from Homer’s Odyssey, translation by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“No one can stop death, Omari. It is normal and certain. And nothing should get in the way of a person’s true destiny.”
― Stephen Whitfield, Omari And The People

“What you must do,” she continued, “you will. Your mission will be as clear to you and as demanding as your heartbeat. Everything else is just a waste of your time.”
― Stephen Whitfield, Omari And The People

“Being kind to someone, only to look kind to others, defeats the purpose of being kind.”
― Shannon L. Alder