Marianne Moore

Excess is the common substitute for energy.

— Marianne Moore

Poetry is a peerless proficiency of the imagination.

— Marianne Moore

Revision is its own reward.

— Marianne Moore

The heart that gives, gathers.

— Marianne Moore

Writing is an undertaking for the modest.

— Marianne Moore

We prove, we do not explain, our birth,

— Marianne Moore

Omissions are not accidents.

— Marianne Moore

All are / naked, none is safe.

— Marianne Moore

Truly as the sun can rot or mend, love can make one bestial or make a beast a man.

— Marianne Moore

Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral; he could handle any missile.

— Marianne Moore

What I write could only be called poetry because there is no other category to put it.

— Marianne Moore

“[Marianne Moore's definition of genuine poetry] -- Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”

— Marianne Moore

Which of us has not been stunned by the beauty of an animal's skin or its flexibility in motion?

— Marianne Moore

Unconfusion submits its confusion to proof; it's not a Herod's oath that cannot change.

— Marianne Moore

The passion for setting people right is in itself an inflictive disease.

— Marianne Moore

Poetry ... ... a place for the genuine, Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise

— Marianne Moore

“When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do…

— 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…

— Marianne Moore

... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ... ... if you demand on one hand, the raw material of poetry in…

— Marianne Moore

Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go.

— Marianne Moore

Not till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"-above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens…

— Marianne Moore

My father used to say, "Superior people never make long visits, have to be shown Longfellows grave, or the glass flowers at…

— Marianne Moore

the small tuft of fronds or katydid legs above each eye, still numbering the units in each group; the shadbones regularly set…

— Marianne Moore

I, too, dislike it. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it, after all, a place for…

— Marianne Moore

“An Egyptian Pulled Glass Bottle In The Shape Of A Fish" Here we have thirst and patience, from the first, and art,…

— Marianne Moore

“...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of…

— Marianne Moore

The prey of fear, he, always curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work partly done, says to the alternating blaze, "Again the…

— Marianne Moore

“Wolf's wool is the best wool, but it cannot be sheared, because the wolf will not comply. With knowledge as with wolves'…

— Marianne Moore

It is in general true that in order to create works of art one has to have leisure. On the other hand…

— Marianne Moore

“As for "A Grave," it has a significance apart from the literal origin, which was a man who placed himself between my…

— Marianne Moore

the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bell buoys, advances as usual, looking as if it were not that…

— Marianne Moore

“Nevertheless" you've seen a strawberry that's had a struggle; yet was, where the fragments met, a hedgehog or a star- fish for…

— Marianne Moore

“Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ...of…

— Marianne Moore

“You do not seem to realize that beauty is a liability rather than an asset - that in view of the fact…

— Marianne Moore

Your thorns are the best part of you.

— Marianne Moore

The power of the visible is the invisible.

— Marianne Moore

The mind is an enchanting thing.

— Marianne Moore

Originality is... a by-product of sincerity.

— Marianne Moore

Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.

— Marianne Moore

The hands are the heart's messengers.

— Marianne Moore