Hayden Carruth Quotes and Sayings - Page 1

“I had always been aware that the Universe is sad; everything in it, animate or inanimate, the wild creatures, the stones, the stars, was enveloped in the great sadness, pervaded by it. Existence had no use. It was without end or reason. The most beautfiul things in it, a flower or a song, as well as the most compelling, a desire or a thought, were pointless. So great a sorrow. And I knew that the only rest from my anxiety—for I had been trembling even in infancy—lay in acknowledging and absorbing this sadness.”
-- Hayden Carruth

Source : Hayden Carruth (1998). “Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays”, p.4, Copper Canyon Press

#Song Quotes #Stars Quotes #Flower Quotes

“My curiosity, alas, is not the kind that can be satisfied by objective knowledge. Plato said that opinion is worthless and that only knowledge counts, which is a neat formulation. But melancholy [men] from the northern mists understand that opinion is all there is. The great questions transcend fact, and discourse is a process of personality. Knowledge cannot respond to knowledge. And wisdom? Is it not opinion refined, opinion killed and resuscitated upward? Maybe Plato would have agreed with this.”
-- Hayden Carruth

Source : "Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays".

#Plato Quotes #Men Quotes #Personality Quotes

“Why speak of the use of poetry? Poetry is what uses us.”
-- Hayden Carruth

Source : Hayden Carruth (2006). “Toward the Distant Islands: New & Selected Poems”, p.25, Copper Canyon Press

#Use Quotes #Speak Quotes #Poetry Is Quotes

“A poem is not an expression, nor is it an object. Yet it somewhat partakes of both. What a poem is is never to be known, for which I have learned to be grateful.”
-- Hayden Carruth

Source : Hayden Carruth (1989). “Tell Me Again how the White Heron Rises and Flies Across the Nacreous River at Twilight Toward the Distant Islands”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

#Grateful Quotes #Expression Quotes #Be Grateful Quotes

“My poems, I think, exist in a state of tension between the love of natural beauty and the fear of natural meaninglessness or absurdity.”
-- Hayden Carruth

Source : "Hayden Carruth, Poet and Critic, Dies at 87" by William Grimes, www.nytimes.com. September 30, 2008.

#Thinking Quotes #Natural Quotes #States Quotes

“Any page by Paul Goodman will give you not only originality and brilliance but wisdom, that is, something to think about. He is our peculiar, urban, twentieth-century Thoreau, the quintessential American mind of our time.”
-- Hayden Carruth

#Thinking Quotes #Giving Quotes #Mind Quotes

“Now I am almost entirely love.”
-- Hayden Carruth

Source : Hayden Carruth (1996). “Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems, 1991-1995”

“I dont really take anything from home except some U.S. magazines and books and definitely some U.S. music. There are just certain songs that remind me of home.”

“I wanted to be different and original but still have it be something my fans could get into. There also are some big, beautiful ballads. I told my producers that I wanted tracks that are going to blow up in the clubs, but I also wanted songs that were very melodic and with a lot of instrumentation.”

“All my songs are where I am.”

“Poetry is a way for me to explore a tingly feeling, to let it play itself out, and also to map it. I feel like I'm making little star maps when I write poems.”

“Stars ink your fingers with a lexicon of flame blazing rare knowledge.”

Source : Aberjhani (2010). “The River of Winged Dreams”, p.67, Lulu.com

“The light, the sky, the water, they were all things you looked *through* during the day. At night, they were things you looked *into*. You looked *into* the stars, you looked *into* dark rollers and the surprising platinum flash of their caps.”

Source : Adam Johnson (2012). “The Orphan Master's Son”, p.41, Random House

“You work here [on the farm] simply without philosophizing; sometimes the work is hard and crowded with pettiness. But at times you feel a surge of cosmic exaltation, like the clear light of the heavens... . And you, too, seem to be taking root in the soil which you are digging, to be nourished by the rays of the sun, to share life with the tiniest blade of grass, with each flower; living in nature's depths, you seem then to rise and grow into the vast expanse of the universe.”

“Some flowers give out little or no odour until crushed.”

“Nationalist Socialist Germany wants peace because of its fundamental convictions. And it wants peace also owing to the realization of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe. The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation. Germany needs peace and desires peace!”

“The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express something. What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.”

Source : Akira Kurosawa (2011). “Something Like An Autobiography”, p.192, Vintage