John Ashbery

“It was always November there.”

— John Ashbery

“Yes, they are alive and can have those colors, But I, in my soul, am alive too. I feel I must sing…

— John Ashbery

How many people came and stayed a certain time, Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you Like light behind…

— John Ashbery

Some certified nut Will try to tell you it's poetry, (It's extraordinary, it makes a great deal of sense) But watch out…

— John Ashbery

The ellipse is as aimless as that, Stretching invisibly into the future so as to reappear In our present. Its flexing is…

— John Ashbery

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night....

— John Ashbery

The facts of history have been too well rehearsed.

— John Ashbery

“The genius of Cornell is that he sees and enables us to see with the eyes of childhood, before our vision got…

— John Ashbery

The mind Is so hospitable, taking in everything Like boarders, and you don't see until It's all over how little there was…

— John Ashbery

In the increasingly convincing darkness The words become palpable, like a fruit That is too beautiful to eat.

— John Ashbery

What I like about music is its ability to be convincing, to carry an argument through successfully to the finish, though the…

— John Ashbery

“The Unknown Travelers Lugged to the gray arbor, I have climbed this snow-stone on my face, My stick, but what, snapped the…

— John Ashbery

I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally…

— John Ashbery

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night, Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through…

— John Ashbery

The promise of learning is a delusion.... Tomorrow would alter the sense of what had already been learned, that the learning process…

— John Ashbery

The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how....

— John Ashbery

The disquieting muses again: what are leftovers?

— John Ashbery

“I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me…

— John Ashbery

And the way Though discontinuous, and intermittent, sometimes Not heard of for years at a time, did, Nonetheless, move up, although, to…

— John Ashbery

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.

— John Ashbery

“Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay, As the flowers recited their lines And pike stirred at the bottom of the…

— John Ashbery

“Where then shall hope and fear their objects find? The harbor cold to the mating ships, And you have lost as you…

— John Ashbery

Will occur as time grows more open about it.

— John Ashbery

Silly girls your heads full of boys

— John Ashbery

Expecting rain, the profile of a day Wears its soul like a hat....

— John Ashbery