John Berryman Quotes

Listen, for poets are feigned to lie, and I For you a liar am a thousand times.

I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity.

And moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly), “Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.” I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

No poet worth his salt is going to be handsome; if he or she is beautiful, there is no need to create the beautiful.

Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made

The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he’s in business.

Something has been said for sobriety but very little.