Quote by Guy Davenport

““Sometimes when reading Goethe I have a paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny.””

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More by Guy Davenport

Art knows neither doctrine nor idea; its nature is to show.

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I was thought to be retarded as a child, and all the evidence indicates that I was.

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The poet is at the edge of our consciousness of the world, finding beyond the suspected nothingness which we imagine limits our perception another…

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“The poet and poetess have always had a rough time of it in the Republic. It has ever been their endemic luck to starve,…

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Something of the previous state, however, survives every change. This is called in the language of cybernetics (which took it form the language of…

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I’ve carved the puppet, and I manipulate the strings, but while it’s on stage, the show belongs to the puppet.

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Art is the attention we pay to the wholeness of the world.

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“I God, a very Gomorry on wheels! You lead the most exciting life I know of, and complain more about it than any two…

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“Man was first a hunter, and an artist: his early vestiges tell us that alone. But he must always have dreamed, and recognized and…

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It is worthwhile adding that the power of the poem to teach not only sensibilities and the subtle movements of the spirit but knowledge,…

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nothing now exists that is so valuable as whatever theoretically might replace it.

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Originality houses many rooms, and the views from the windows are all different.

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