James Wright Quotes

#1. 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

#2. We choose exile as a vantage point; from exile we look back on the rejected

James Wright

#3. 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

#4. 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

#5. 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

#6. Poetry can keep life itself alive. You can endure almost anything as long as you can sing about it.

James Wright

#7. Across the road, tadpoles are dancing on the quarter thumbnail of the moon. They cant see, not yet.

James Wright

#8. Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright

#9. They can buy whatever brand they want. We will supply the finance.

James Wright

#10. I asked the Mesquite coach who he thought the best team in Mesquite is. He said they were about even.

James Wright

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

James Wright

#12. I would rather live my life than not live it.

James Wright

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

James Wright

#14. Look: I am nothing.
I do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes.

James Wright

#15. 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

#16. 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

#17. 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

#18. Practice good personal hygiene. Wash your hands before you eat. Be aware of good clean water and food sources.

James Wright

#19. I close my eyes, and think of water.

James Wright

#20. Good evening charlie, yes I know you rise, two lean grey spiders drifting through your eyes.

James Wright