American - Poet | March 3, 1926 - February 6, 1995
He puts his right hand lightly on the cup, I put my left, leaving the right free to transcribe, and away we go. We get, oh, 500 to 600 words an hour. Better than gasoline.
James Merrill
WordsFreeBetterGoLeavingHand
And, as I have said, it's made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren't external, how astonishing the mediums become! Victor Hugo said of his voices that they were like his own mental powers multiplied by five.
ImaginationMeThinkSaidBecome
Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images.
HopeUniverseYoungPossibleSense
At college I'd seen my dead frog's limbs twitch under some applied stimulus or other - seen, but hadn't believed. Didn't dream of thinking beyond or around what I saw.
CollegeThinkingDreamBeyondDead
Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays.
TryingNovelBeforeWrotePlays
But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice.
MeVoiceSpeakLanguageMy OwnOwn
I'd like to think the scientists need us - but do they? Did Newton need Blake?
ThinkNeedUsLikeDidScientists
In life, there are no perfect affections.
LifePerfectAffections
Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem.
WordsLanguageYouFindKnowing
Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.
CommunicationParentsProblemsEasy
The simplest science book is over my head.
ScienceBookOverHeadSimplest
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict James Merrill quotes