Dan Chiasson Quotes & Sayings

If you can orbit the planet, why can't you see
what makes the human heart happy?
Is it art or is it sex?
Or is it, as I suspect, just keeping going
from next thing to next thing
to next thing to next thing
to next to next to next to next
pulsating stupidly to outlast time? — Dan Chiasson

If you are made for flight, intended for it,
you had better find a pursuer, fast.
Otherwise, all that fleeing is going nowhere. — Dan Chiasson

There are varieties of life unknown to you.
Their whole identity is: you can't find out. — Dan Chiasson

The most significant events, Bishop seems to argue, are destined to remain outside the scope of description. It is perhaps their very status as excessive or fugitive that makes them, in the end, significant. A poet who believes such things will not arrive uncomplicatedly at self-description. — Dan Chiasson