Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to stop. You've got to stop what you're doing, what you're thinking, and what you're expecting and… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
When a poem is really finished, you can't change anything. You can't move words around. You can't say, 'In other words, you mean.' No,… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
I also think that life itself is both indifferent to us and the source of all of our joys and everything that we love.… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
I think it's good for anybody to learn languages. Americans are particularly limited in that way. Europeans less so... We're beginning to have Spanish… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
You have to be rather relentless about pushing other things out of the way. This activity of writing, which has no promises attached to… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
Laughter was the shape the darkness took around the first appearance of the light. — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
In a sense, much that is learned is bound to be bad habits. You're always beginning again. — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
I go five steps in the garden, and I immediately lose track of time... it is a kind of joy in being alive in… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
What I really believe is the only hopeful relation between our life and the whole of life is one of reverence and respect and… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
As soon as I could write with a little pencil, I was writing these little hymns and illustrating them, and I thought they should… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
There are aspects of human life that are not purely destructive, and there is a need to pay attention to the things around us… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
If there'd been a better-balanced society, where there were other ways of making a decent living, I think it might have been different. That's… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
We are the shadow of Sirius. There is the other side of - as we talk to each other, we see the light, and… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to… — W. S. Merwin Copy Share Image
