There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).
John BerrymanSo if I were talking to a young writer, 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 both are bad for writers.
John BerrymanI cry. Evil dissolves, & love, like foam; that love. Prattle of children powers me home, my heart claps like the swan's under a frenzy of who love me & who shine.
John BerrymanThese Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand. They are only meant to terrify & comfort.
John BerrymanOffering Dragons quarter is no good, they regrow all their parts and come on again. They have to be killed.
John BerrymanI think that what happens in my poetic work in the future will depend on my being knocked in the face, and thrown flat, and given cancer, and all kinds of other things short of senile dementia.
John BerrymanI do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: 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: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.
John BerrymanYou should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.
John BerrymanLife, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn
John BerrymanLife, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) '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.
John BerrymanBats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.
John BerrymanThe 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.
John BerrymanI conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature.
John Berryman