Reluctant Quotes by Marianne Moore

When one is frank, one's very presence is a compliment.

— Marianne Moore

One writes because one has a burning desire to objectify what it is indispensable to one's happiness to express.

— Marianne Moore

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

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.

— Marianne Moore

“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

Camels are snobbish and sheep, unintelligent; water buffaloes, neurasthenic-- even murderous. Reindeer seem over-serious.

— Marianne Moore

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

The hands are the heart's messengers.

— Marianne Moore

I believe verbal felicity is the fruit of ardor, of diligence, and of refusing to be false.

— Marianne Moore

Conscious writing can be the death of poetry.

— Marianne Moore

Only imagination that towers can reproduce evanescence and render rigidity flexible.

— Marianne Moore

Revision is its own reward.

— Marianne Moore