Poets From The United States

"The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. Look at the magazines, the newspapers around us – it's all junk, all trash, tidbits of news. The average TV ad has 120 images a minute. Everything just falls off your mind. … You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

"Oh God, without them [libraries], what have we? We have no past and we have no future."

"Life is like underwear, should be changed twice a day."

"Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be."

"From now on I hope always to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."

"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together."

"And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all."

"My stories run up and bite me in the leg — I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off."

"I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?"

"People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better."

"We clothe ourselves in flame And trade new myths for old. The Greek gods christen us With ghosts of comet swords; God smiles and names us thus: " "Arise! Run! Fly, my Lords!""

"YOUR INFLUENCE ON US ALL, FROM 1939 ON, CANNOT BE MEASURED. I CAN ONLY SAY I REMEMBER, WARMLY, YOUR MANY KINDNESSES TO ME WHEN I WAS 19–20–21 YEARS OLD. THAT YOUNG MAN BASKED IN YOUR LIGHT AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE GRATEFUL FOR THE HELP YOU OFFERED WHEN I WAS SO POOR & NEEDFUL!"

"All silence is. All emptiness. And now: The dawn."

"Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers."

"All flesh is one: what matter scores; Or color of the suit Or if the helmet glints with blue or gold? All is one bold achievement, All is fine spring-found-again-in-autumn day When juices run in antelopes along our blood, And green our flag, forever green…"

"My first decision about a career was at eleven, to be a and travel the world with my . My second decision was at twelve when I got a toy typewriter for Christmas. And I decided to become a . And between the decision and the reality lay eight years of junior high school, high school, and selling newspapers on a street corner in Los Angeles, while I wrote three million words."

"Disbelief is catching. It rubs off on people."

"Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off."

"The jungle looked back at them with a vastness, a breathing moss-and-leaf silence, with a billion diamond and emerald insect eyes."

"There they go, off to Venus, just for the ride, thinking that they will find a planet like a seer's crystal, in which to read a miraculous future. What they'll find, instead, is the somewhat shopworn image of themselves. Mars is a mirror, not a crystal."

"A wonderful bird is a pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week; But I'm damned if I see how the helican."

"Adam Had 'em."

"I think that comparisons are truly odious, I do not approve of this constant proud or envious to-do; And furthermore, dear friends, I think that you and yours are delightful and I also think that me and mine are delightful too."

"Other people, and it doesn't matter if they are Scandinavians or Celts, Think that anything is better than theirs just because it belongs to somebody else."

"Some people, and it doesn't matter whether they are paupers or millionaires, Think that anything they have is the best in the world just because it is theirs."

"O Adolescence, O Adolescence I wince before thine incandescence . . . When anxious elders swarm about Crying "Where are you going?", thou answerest "Out," . . . Strewn! All is lost and nothing found Lord, how thou leavest things around! . . ."

"Life has a tendency to obfuscate and bewilder, Such as fating us to spend the first part of our lives being embarrassed by our parents and the last part being embarrassed by our childer."

"Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else..."

"Indoors or out, no one relaxes In March, that month of wind and taxes, The wind will presently disappear, The taxes last us all the year."

"Your hair may be brushed, but your mind's untidy, You've had about seven hours' sleep since Friday, No wonder you feel that lost sensation; You're sunk from a riot of relaxation."

"Being a father Is quite a bother, But I like it, rather."

"First Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder, This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder. A staggering child, a child astounding, Dazzling, diaperless, dumfounding, Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed, A child to stagger and flabbergast, Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn, And the only perfect one ever born. Second Arrived this evening at half-past nine. Everybody is doing fine. Is it a boy, or quite the reverse? You can call in the morning and ask the nurse."

"A young person is a person with nothing to learn One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn... It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet, And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn without running a nail in its feet. . . . Meanwhile psychologists grow rich Writing that the young are ones' should not undermine the self-confidence of which."

"Whales have calves, Cats have kittens Bears have Cubs, Bats have bittens, Swans have cygnets, Seals have puppies, But guppies just have little guppies."

"A fig for embryo Lohengrins! I'll open all his safety pins, I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle, And give him readings from Aristotle. Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring, And Tabasco sauce for his teething ring. Then perhaps he'll struggle through fire and water To marry somebody else's daughter."

"My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; Contrariwise, my blood runs cold When little boys go by. For little boys as little boys, No special hate I carry, But now and then they grow to men, And when they do, they marry. No matter how they tarry, Eventually they marry. And, swine among the pearls, They marry little girls."

"Oh, than to enjoy a storm like this There's nothing I would rather, Don't dive between the blankets, Miss! Or else leave room for Father."

"We love the kindly wind and hail, The jolly thunderbolt, We watch in glee the fairy trail Of ampere, watt, and volt."

"I hope of lightning our supply Will never be exhausted; You know it's lanterns in the sky For angels who are losted."

"Fear not the thunder, little one. It's weather, simply weather; It's friendly giants full of fun Clapping their hands together."

"The garden is a raging sea, The hurricane is snarling; Oh, happy you and happy me! Isn't the lightning darling?"

"The sky is now indelible ink, The branches reft asunder; But you and I we do not shrink; We love the lovely thunder."

"The weather is so very mild That some would call it warm. Good gracious, aren't we lucky, child? Here comes a thunderstorm."

"Their joy needs another woe's to cushion it, Say a puddle, and someone littler to push in it. They observe with glee the ballistic results Of ice cream with spoons for catapults, And inform the assembly with tears and glares That everyone's presents are better than theirs. Oh, little women and little men, Someday I hope to love you again, But not till after the party's over, So give me the key to the doghouse, Rover"

"I've earned repose to heal the ravages Of these angelic-looking savages. Oh, progeny playing by itself Is a lonely little elf, But progeny in roistering batches Would drive St. Francis from here to Natchez."

"May I join you in the doghouse, Rover? I wish to retire till the party's over."

"Leave the earth to the strong and athletic, And the sea to adventure upon. But the sun and the sand No contractor can copy; We lie in the land Of the lotus and poppy; We vegetate, calm and aesthetic, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun."

"To lave in the wave, Majestic and chilly, Tomorrow I crave; But today it is silly. It is pleasant to look at the ocean; Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall swim in it."

"How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done!."

"The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon, And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon, He fired two bullets, but they didn't hit, And Custard gobbled him, every bit."