Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.
John CiardiTell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.
John CiardiModern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
John CiardiConviction is possible only in a world more primitive than ours can be perceived to be. A man can achieve a simply gnomic conviction only by ignoring the radical describers of his environment, or by hating them, as convinced men have hated, say, Darwin and Freud, as agents of some devil.
John Ciardi