A Quote by Wallace Stevens

The mind is the great poem of winter, the man, Who, to find what will suffice, Destroys romantic tenements Of rose and ice.

Wallace Stevens

Quote Topics

Destroys Find Great He Man Ice Man Mind Poem Romantic Rose Suffice Tenements Will Winter

Quote Author

Wallace Stevens
American - Poet
October 2, 1879 - August 2, 1955

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Robert Frost

When the Divine Artist would produce a poem, He plants a germ of it in a human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and grows as from the rose-tree the rose.

James A. Garfield

Winter is not an end. It is in transit. It is headed to bankruptcy. The sheriff will sell its stock for what he can get and an ice man will be the only bidder at the sale.

William Alfred Quayle

I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice.

Robert Frost

The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple's a rose, And the pear is, and so's The plum, I suppose. The dear only knows What will next prove a rose. You, of course, are a rose - But were always a rose.

Robert Frost

Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly? The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring ,Its summer blossoms scent the air; Yet wait till winter comes again, And who will call the wild-briar fair? Then, scorn the silly rose-wreath now, And deck thee with holly's sheen, That, when December blights thy brow, He still may leave thy garland green.

Emily Dickinson

Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.

Richard Hugo

People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.

Dmitri Shostakovich

We're always telling stories, we're supposed to be reacting, a man and woman on the ice, it's romantic.

Scott Moir

It is not the high summer alone that is God's. The winter also is His. And into His winter He came to visit us. And all man's winters are His - the winter of our poverty, the winter of our sorrow, the winter of our unhappiness - even 'the winter of our discontent.

George MacDonald

Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it, and will add to what the poet has suggested. But I do think poetry readings are very important.

James Laughlin

Poetry has no goal other than itself; it can have no other, and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of the name of poem, than one written uniquely for the pleasure of writing a poem.

Charles Baudelaire

It's a beautiful feeling to be out on the ice, breathing in the cold air and hearing the blades hit the ice. It's kind of romantic.

Allison Janney

Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.

Dorothy L. Sayers

I started traveling in the Arctic in 1991, so I experienced the ice in winter and spring. The seasonal sea ice, it has a long season. It starts in September and ends in June.