Quotes & Sayings About Emily Dickinson Poetry

Death is like the insect
Menacing the tree,
Competent to kill it,
But decoyed may be.
Bait it with the balsam,
Seek it with the saw,
Baffle, if it cost you
Everything you are.
Then, if it have burrowed
Out of reach of skill -
Wring the tree and leave it,
'Tis the vermin's will.
Of Nature I shall have enough
When I have entered these
Entitled to a Bumble bee's
Familiarities. — Emily Dickinson

I many times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At centre of the sea,
And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
How many the fictitious shores
Before the harbor lie. — Emily Dickinson

These are all direct quotes, except every time they use a curse word, I'm going to use the name of a famous American poet:
'You Walt Whitman-ing, Edna St. Vincent Millay! Go Emily Dickinson your mom!'
'Thanks for the advice, you pathetic piece of E.E. Cummings, but I think I'm gonna pass.'
'You Robert Frost-ing Nikki Giovanni! Get a life, nerd. You're a virgin.'
'Hey bro, you need to go outside and get some fresh air into you. Or a girlfriend.'
I need to get a girlfriend into me? I think that shows a fundamental lack of comprehension about how babies are made. — John Green

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell. — Emily Dickinson

Water is taught by thirst;
Land, by the oceans passed;
Transport, by throe;
Peace, by its battles told;
Love, by memorial mould;
Birds, by the snow. — Emily Dickinson

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. — Emily Dickinson

The Poets light but Lamps-
Themselves-go out- — Emily Dickinson

While I was fearing it, it came,
But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it dear.
There is a fitting a dismay,
A fitting a despair.
'T is harder knowing it is due,
Than knowing it is here.
The trying on the utmost,
The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through — Emily Dickinson

Who loves you most, and loves you best, and thinks of you when others rest? 'Tis Emilie. — Emily Dickinson

Oh my darling one, how long you wander from me, how weary I grow of waiting and looking, and calling for you; sometimes I shut my eyes, and shut my heart towards you, and try hard to forget you because you grieve me so, but you'll never go away, oh you never will. — Emily Dickinson

PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there's a word to lift your hat to ... to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that's the genius behind poetry. — Emily Dickinson

The Soul selects her own Society
Then - shuts the Door
To her divine Majority
Present no more
Unmoved - she notes the Chariots - pausing
At her low Gate
Unmoved - an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat
I've known her - from an ample nation
Choose One
Then - close the Valves of her attention
Like Stone - — Emily Dickinson

Even the best critical writing on Emily Dickinson underestimates her. She is frightening. To come to her directly from Dante, Spenser, Blake, and Baudelaire is to find her sadomasochism obvious and flagrant. Birds, bees, and amputated hands are the dizzy stuff of this poetry. Dickinson is like the homosexual cultist draping himself in black leather and chains to bring the idea of masculinity into aggressive visibility. — Camille Paglia

Poetry, for example, goes so deeply into the space between corporeal affect and deep emotion (even primal in some cases) that, as Emily Dickinson said, it can blow the top of your head off. Poetic language is sometimes misunderstood as "abstract" when in reality, it's precise - precisely the language of emotions and the body. — Lidia Yuknavitch

I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still. — Emily Dickinson

In snow thou comest
Thou shalt go with resuming ground
The sweet derision of thx crow
And Glee's advancing sound — Emily Dickinson

I know that I myself have felt that prickling of the scalp that Emily Dickinson tells us is the sign of recognition before a true poem. — May Sarton

Mr. O'Donnell was at the library counter, performing the sort of grim rituals librarians perform with index cards and stumpy pencils and those rubber stamps with columns of rotating numbers. "Ms. Auerbach! What will it be today? Camus? Cervantes?" "Actually I'm looking for a book of poetry by Emily Dickinson"
He paused somberly, toying with the twirled tip of his mustache. No matter how seriously librarians are engaged in their work, they are always glad to be interrupted when the theme is books. It makes no difference to them how simple the search is or how behind on time either of you might be running - they consider all queries scrupulously. They love to have their knowledge tested. They lie in wait, they will not be rushed. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Emily Dickinson calls previous poets her kinsmen of the shelf. You can always be consoled by your kinsmen of the shelf and you can participate in poetry by going to them and by trying to make something worthy of them. — Edward Hirsch

Bennett advises his daughter not to develop a passion for poetry because it is 'dangerous to a woman': like novels, poetry heightens a woman's 'natural sensibility to an extravagant degree' and 'inspires a 'romantic turn of the mind,' that is 'utterly inconsistent with the solid duties and priorities of life. — Paraic Finnerty

Delight becomes pictorial
When viewed through pain,
More fair, because impossible
That any gain.
The mountain at a given distance
In amber lies;
Approached, the amber flits a little,
And that 's the skies! — Emily Dickinson

I love Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. I also love more cerebral poets like H.D. and Emily Dickinson. My parents subscribed to a monthly poetry periodical, and as a teenager I was introduced to Denise Levertov, who was an influence. — Francesca Lia Block

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. — Emily Dickinson

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity — Emily Dickinson

We do not play on Graves
Because there isn't Room
Besides - it isn't even - it slants
And People come
And put a Flower on it
And hang their faces so
We're fearing that their Hearts will drop
And crush our pretty play
And so we move as far
As Enemies - away
Just looking round to see how far
It is - Occasionally - — Emily Dickinson

Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a "Diver" -
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest,
Her heart is fit for home-
I- a Sparrow- build there
Sweet of twigs and twine
My perennial nest. — Emily Dickinson

Sometimes when I've got a baseball player alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him. And the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks its foreplay. — Ron Shelton

It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And I was like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.

But most like chaos,--stopless, cool,
Without a chance or spar,--
Or even a report of land
To justify despair. — Emily Dickinson

Then I will not repine
Knowing that bird of mine
Though flown shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return. — Emily Dickinson

For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy. — Emily Dickinson

Beauty crowds me till I die,
Beauty, mercy have on me!
But if I expire today,
Let it be in sight of thee — Emily Dickinson

The days will have more hours while you are gone away. — Emily Dickinson

I never spoke - unless addressed
And then, 'twas brief and low
I could not bear to live - aloud
The Racket shamed me so
And if it had not been so far
And any one I knew
Were going - I had often thought
How noteless - I could die - — Emily Dickinson

Did the harebell loose her girdle
To the lover bee,
Would the bee the harebell hallow
Much as formerly? — Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there 's a pair of us - don't tell!
They 'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog! — Emily Dickinson

Anne Sexton knows the mind, Walt Whitman knows grass, but Emily Dickinson knows everything. — Matt Haig

Sappho is a great poet because she is a lesbian, which gives her erotic access to the Muse. Sappho and the homosexual-tending Emily Dickinson stand alone above women poets, because poetry's mystical energies are ruled by a hierach requiring the sexual subordination of her petitioners. Women have achieved more as novelists than as poets because the social novel operates outside the ancient marriage of myth and eroticism. — Camille Paglia

Moom' and 'tomb' actually rhyme, which is something Dickinson hardly ever did, preferring near-rhymes such as 'mat/gate', 'tune/sun,' and 'balm/hermaphrodite. — Connie Willis

Consciousness is the only home of which we know. — Emily Dickinson

I miss you, mourn for you, and walk the streets alone- often at night, beside, I fall asleep in tears, for your dear face, yet not one word comes back to me. If it is finished, tell me, and I will raise the lid to my box of Phantoms, and lay one more love in; but if it lives and beats still, still lives and beats for me, then say so, and I will strike the strings to one more strain of happiness before I die. — Emily Dickinson

Certainly I'm participating in an already established and awesome tradition, but it's a tradition that sort of shoots up and through the mainstream in short bursts and pulses and then gets diluted. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson shot up and then got sucked back down underground under more entertaining and less radical versions of body and self - poetry and prose that posited bodies in more perfect union with good citizenship. — Lidia Yuknavitch

Good Morning - Midnight
I'm coming Home
Day - got tired of Me
How could I - of Him?
Sunshine was a sweet place
I liked to stay
But Morn - didn't want me - now
So - Goodnight - Day!
I can look - can't I
When the East is Red?
The Hills - have a way - then
That puts the Heart - abroad
You - are not so fair - Midnight
I chose - Day
But - please take a little Girl
He turned away! — Emily Dickinson

Being Jewish, you didn't get into a sorority. So I really was much more outgoing and gregarious. I really didn't want to spend an Emily Dickinson adolescence reading poetry on gravestones, which I did. — Betty Friedan

The Martyr Poets

The Martyr Poets - did not tell -
But wrought their Pang in syllable -
That when their mortal name be numb -
Their mortal fate - encourage Some -

The Martyr Painters - never spoke -
Bequeathing - rather - to their Work
That when their conscious fingers cease -
Some seek in Art - the Art of Peace - — Emily Dickinson

Perhaps I asked too large
I take - no less than skies
For Earths, grow thick as
Berries, in my native town
My Basket holds - just - Firmaments
Those - dangle easy - on my arm,
But smaller bundles - Cram. — Emily Dickinson

Split the Lark - and you'll find the Music, Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled. — Emily Dickinson

Your absence insanes me so
I do not feel so peaceful, when you are gone from me. — Emily Dickinson

Tell the truth, but tell it slant. — Emily Dickinson

A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think. — Emily Dickinson

Edwards's stark presentation of the immanent consciousness of Separation enters the structure of her poems. Each word is a cipher, through its sensible sign another sign hidden. The recipient of a letter, or combination of letter and poem from Emily Dickinson, was forced much like Edwards' listening congregation, through shock and through subtraction of the ordinary, to a new way of perceiving. Subject and object were fused at that moment, into the immediate feeling of understanding. This re-ordering of the forward process of reading is what makes her poetry and the prose of her letters among the most original writing of her century. — Susan Howe

She dwelleth in the Ground
Where Daffodils - abide
Her Maker - Her Metropolis
The Universe - Her Maid
To fetch Her Grace - and Hue
And Fairness - and Renown
The Firmament's - To Pluck Her
And fetch Her Thee - be mine - — Emily Dickinson

How vain it seems to write, when one knows how to feel
how much more near and dear to sit beside you, talk with you, hear the tones of your voice ... Give me strength, Susie, write me of hope and love, and of hearts that endure ... — Emily Dickinson

Much Madness is Divinest Sense, to a Discerning Eye ... — Emily Dickinson

Belshazzar had a letter,
He never had but one;
Belshazzar's correspondent
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation's wall. — Emily Dickinson

When you come home, darling, I shant have your letters, but I shall have yourself, which is more
oh more, and better, than I can even think! I sit here with my little whip, cracking the time away, 'till not an hour is left of it- then you are here! And joy is here
joy now and forevermore! Tis only a few days, Susie, it will soon go away, yet I say, "go now, this very moment, for I need her- I must have her, oh, give her to me!" Sometimes when I do feel so, I think it may be wrong, and that God will punish me by taking you away; for He is very kind to let me write to you, and to give me your sweet letters, but my heart wants more. — Emily Dickinson

She dealt her pretty words like Blades
How glittering they shone
And every One unbared a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone
She never deemed
she hurt
That
is not Steel's Affair
A vulgar grimace in the Flesh
How ill the Creatures bear
To Ache is human
not polite
The Film upon the eye
Mortality's old Custom
Just locking up
to Die. — Emily Dickinson

I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;
Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The realm of you. — Emily Dickinson

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie
True Poems flee - — Emily Dickinson

Words, to me, are the same as an instrument is to a musician. I never know where this typewriter is going to take me until I begin. I never know what I'm feeling until I read over what I have written. — Tessa Emily Hall

Oh Susie, I often think that I will try to tell you how very dear you are, and how I'm watching for you, but the words won't come, though the tears will, and I sit down disappointed. Yet, darling, you know it all
then why do I seek to tell you? I do not know. In thinking of those I love, my reason is all gone from me, and I do fear sometimes that I must make a hospital for the hopelessly insane, and chain myself up there so I won't injure you. — Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant. — Emily Dickinson

After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence. — Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Much Madness Is Divinest Sense
Much Madness is divinest Sense
To a discerning Eye
Much Sense - the starkest Madness
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail
Assent - and you are sane
Demur - you're straightway dangerous
And handled with a Chain - — Emily Dickinson

The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide,
Earth a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue. — Emily Dickinson

A wounded dear leaps the highest — Emily Dickinson

We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble. — Emily Dickinson

Inebriate of Air - am I
And Debauchee of Dew
Reeling - thro endless summer days
From Inns of Molten Blue - — Emily Dickinson

Sweet hour, blessed hour, to carry me to you, and to bring you back to me, long enough to snatch one kiss, and whisper goodbye again. — Emily Dickinson

Your poetry--it doesn't deserve to be locked away, hidden from the rest of the world. And neither do you. — Tessa Emily Hall

Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known ... then went crazy as a loon.
Lisa Simpson — Matt Groening

One need not be a chamber to be haunted. — Emily Dickinson