Charles Olson Quotes (27 Quotes)

This morning of the small snow I count the blessings, the leak in the faucet which makes of the sink time, the drop of the water on water.

We all want what's been suddenly disallowed.

I don't live for poetry. I live far more than anybody else does.

You don't help people in your poems. I've been trying to help people all my life - that's my trouble.

Forgive me if I sleep until I wake up.

I take space to be the central fact to man born in America. I spell it large because it comes large here. Large and without mercy.

The Canadian voice is still too rustic.

When will government cease being a nuisance to everybody

I'm trying to climb up both walls at once.

The heroes of the present will retreat to the imitation they are anyhow.

I'm sorry, but I was born with a towel on my head.

You can do anything, literally, right That's one of the exciting possibilities of the present.

The poem, for me, is simply the first sound realized in the modality of being.

I'm one of the cliches that has grown up.

There is a grace of life which is still yours, my dear Europe.

I hope you're representing the devil's advocate.

You can read everybody. It's not even interesting to tell the truth because to some extent it's false.

I remember way back when I was young, 10 years ago.

I couldn't write a canto if I sat down and deliberately tried. My interest is not in cantos. It's in another condition of a song.

Atlantis will rise again.

I sound like Homer. I mean Winslow Homer.

Whatever you have to say, leave the roots on, let them dangle, And the dirt, Just to make clear where they come from.

I defer to all these other American poets who, for some reason, I both envy and admire.

I am happy to have some friends here in the kitchen.

This country has been unconscious, and it's got to awake. That's my belief.

I was playing catch with the European audience.

Fact is based upon vulgar matter.