James Wright Quotes

In a pine tree,/ A few yards from my window sill,/ A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and/ down./ On a branch./ I laugh, as I see him abandon himself/ To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do/ That the branch will not break.

I close my eyes, and think of water.

Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.

I write abundantly. And then my next step is to struggle to reduce the ornament, to reduce the abundance-to prune the book, in other words, the way one prunes a tree-so it can grow. This is my idea of a book.

Look: I am nothing. I do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes.

It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.

In life, you gotta do something. And the medical journals keep on saying if you've got a goal or some passion in life, you'll outlive all the other guys who - the bank manager that retired. They gave him a rocking chair and he rocked himself to death. So you gotta have a passion, whatever it happens to be. Whether it's this or something else, it doesn't matter, as long as it's a reason to get out of bed every morning, as my accountant of 50 years keeps on saying.

Most of the pollution in the water already is dead animal and plant matter and building debris, ... good stagnant nursery for mosquitoes.

Practice good personal hygiene. Wash your hands before you eat. Be aware of good clean water and food sources.

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

Poetry can keep life itself alive. You can endure almost anything as long as you can sing about it.

There is this cave In the air behind my body That nobody is going to touch: A cloister, a silence Closing around a blossom of fire. When I stand upright in the wind, My bones turn to dark emeralds.

They can buy whatever brand they want. We will supply the finance.

I asked the Mesquite coach who he thought the best team in Mesquite is. He said they were about even.