the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bell buoys, advances as usual, looking as if it were not that… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
[On her use of quotations:] When a thing has been said so well that it could not be said better, why paraphrase… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one's attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain,… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
Life is energy, and energy is creativity. And even when individuals pass on, the energy is retained in the work of art,… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
A man is a writer if all his words are strung in definite sentence sounds. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
One writes because one has a burning desire to objectify what it is indispensable to one's happiness to express. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
Victory won't come to me unless I go to it; a grape tendril ties a knot in knots till knotted thirty times — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
“Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ...of the main… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
Camels are snobbish and sheep, unintelligent; water buffaloes, neurasthenic-- even murderous. Reindeer seem over-serious. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
I believe verbal felicity is the fruit of ardor, of diligence, and of refusing to be false. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
Only imagination that towers can reproduce evanescence and render rigidity flexible. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image