John Ciardi

Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!

What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.

Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.

There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.

It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.

Poetry lies its way to the truth.

The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.

The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn’t deserve it, give it to him anyhow.

Nothing goes further toward a man’s liberation than the act of surviving his need for character.

Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.

A dollar saved is a quarter earned.

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.

The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it.

A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.

Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.

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.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

You don’t have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.

The day will happen whether or not you get up.