James Wright Quotes & Sayings

I write abundantly. And then my next step is to struggle to reduce the ornament, to reduce the abundance-to prune the book, in other words, the way one prunes a tree-so it can grow. This is my idea of a book. — James Wright

The Jewel
There is this cave
In the air behind my body
That nobody is going to touch:
A cloister, a silence
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind,
My bones turn to dark emeralds. — James Wright

Across the road, tadpoles are dancing on the quarter thumbnail of the moon. They cant see, not yet. — James Wright

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life. — James Wright

In a pine tree,/ A few yards from my window sill,/ A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and/ down./ On a branch./ I laugh, as I see him abandon himself/ To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do/ That the branch will not break. — James Wright

I close my eyes, and think of water. — James Wright

They can buy whatever brand they want. We will supply the finance. — James Wright

Most of the pollution in the water already is dead animal and plant matter and building debris, ... good stagnant nursery for mosquitoes. — James Wright

We choose exile as a vantage point; from exile we look back on the rejected — James Wright

Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom. — James Wright

And then, when noon comes,
Each stranger
Has no room left in the light
Except for only his hands.
Here are mine. They are kind of skinny. May I have your
lovely trees? — James Wright

Poetry can keep life itself alive. You can endure almost anything as long as you can sing about it. — James Wright

It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel. — James Wright

Good evening charlie, yes I know you rise, two lean grey spiders drifting through your eyes. — James Wright

Look: I am nothing.
I do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes. — James Wright

I would rather live my life than not live it. — James Wright

Love is a cliff,
A clear, cold curve of stone, mottled by stars,
Smirched by the morning, carved by the dark sea
Till stars and dawn and waves can slash no more,
Till the rock's heart is found and shaped again. — James Wright

Give winter nothing; hold; and let the flake
Poise or dissolve along your upheld arms.
All flawless hexagons may melt and break;
While you must feel the summer's rage of fire,
Beyond this frigid season's empty storms.
Banished to bloom, and bear the birds' desire. — James Wright

Practice good personal hygiene. Wash your hands before you eat. Be aware of good clean water and food sources. — James Wright

I asked the Mesquite coach who he thought the best team in Mesquite is. He said they were about even. — James Wright

But I have burned already down to bone.
There is a fire that burns beyond the names
Of sludge and filth of which this world is made.
Agony sears the dark flesh of the body,
And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise
Above the earth, above the sacrifice;
Until my soul flares outward like a blue
Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air:
Free of the body's work of twisted iron. — James Wright

In life, you gotta do something. And the medical journals keep on saying if you've got a goal or some passion in life, you'll outlive all the other guys who - the bank manager that retired. They gave him a rocking chair and he rocked himself to death. So you gotta have a passion, whatever it happens to be. Whether it's this or something else, it doesn't matter, as long as it's a reason to get out of bed every morning, as my accountant of 50 years keeps on saying. — James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes. — James Wright