Books Quote by Ben Lerner

I don't think it's always a sign of respect for persons (inside or outside of fiction) to pretend to be able to represent, to…

— Ben Lerner

Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you've the chance.

— Ben Lerner

I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I…

— Ben Lerner

“What you need to do is harness the self-love you are hypostasizing as offspring, as the next generation of you, and let it branch…

— Ben Lerner

“And because his narrator was characterized above all by his anxiety regarding the disconnect between his internal experience and his social self-presentation,”

— Ben Lerner

“And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it…

— Ben Lerner

I didn't want to write another book about fraudulence.

— Ben Lerner

The problem is that if you're self-conscious about being a person on whom nothing is lost, isn't something lost - some kind of presence?…

— Ben Lerner

Most of us start from that position of irony now and what I wanted to do - really felt like I had to do…

— Ben Lerner

Laser technology has fulfilled our people's ancient dream of a blade so fine that the person it cuts remains standing and alive until he…

— Ben Lerner

“Our contempt for any particular poem must be perfect, be total, because only a ruthless reading that allows us to measure the gap between…

— Ben Lerner

If I was a poet, I had become one because poetry, more intensely than any other practice, could not evade its anachronism and marginality…

— Ben Lerner