All Karl Shapiro Quotes
- The modern essay has regained a good deal of its literary status in our time, much to the credit of Joseph Epstein. Credit
- Leo Connellan has retained his soul and voice in Provincetown and Other Poems. Inspirational
- Laughter and grief join hands. Always the heart Clumps in the breast with heavy stride; The face grows lined and wrinkled like a chart, The… Bloodshot
- But with exquisite breathing you smile, with satisfaction of love, And I touch you again as you tick in the silence and settle in sleep. Breathing
- Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique. Doe
- Already old, the question Who shall die? Becomes unspoken Who is innocent? Already Old
- The good poet sticks to his real loves, to see within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the… God
- The body, what is it, Father, but a sign To love the force that grows us, to give back What in Thy palm is senselessness… Body
- My soul is now her day, my day her night, So I lie down, and so I rise. Day
- To make the child in your own image is a capital crime, for your image is not worth repeating. The child knows this and you… Capital
- How something important happens is the business of historians and newspapers, the effect it has is the business of philosophers and writers and especially poets. Business
- A man's house is his stage. Others walk on to play their bit parts. Now and again a soliloquy, a birth, an adultery. Adultery
- Lawyers love paper. They eat, sleep and dream paper. They turn paper into gold, and their files are colorful and their language neoclassical and calli-graphically… Bewigged
- The proverbist knows nothing of the two sides of a question. He knows only the roundness of answers. Answers
- Poets of course are even more unpredictable than other writers, overwhelmed as they are by the moment they inhabit and finding it difficult to connect… Connect
- Self-knowledge is a dangerous thing, tending to make man shallow or insane. Dangerous
- Every war is its own excuse. That's why they're all surrounded with ideals. That's why they're all crusades. All
- Haul up the flag, you mourners, Not half-mast but all the way; The funeral is done and disbanded; The devil's had the final say. All
- The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human… God
- Lastly, his tomb shall list and founder in the troughs of grass. And none shall speak his name. Founder
- The doctor punched my vein, the captain called me Cain, upon my belly sat the sow of fear. Belly
- In the tight belly of the dead, Burrow with hungry head, And inlay maggots like a jewel. Belly
- I see slip to the curb the long machines Out of whose warm and windowed rooms pirouette Shellacked with silk and light The hard legs… Curb