John Ciardi
Dramatist
1916-06-24
Quotes by John Ciardi
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Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.
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And the time sundials tellMay be minutes and hours. But it may just as wellBe seconds and sparkles, or seasons and flowers.No, I don't think of time as just minutes and hours.Time can be heartbeats, or bird songs, or miles,Or waves on a beach, or ants in their files(They do move like seconds— just watch their feet go:Tick-tick-tick, like a clock). You'll learn as you growThat whatever there is in a garden, the sunCounts up on its dial. By the time it is doneOur sundial— or someone's— will certainly addAll the good things there are. Yes, and all of the bad.And if anyone's here for the finish, the sunWill have told him— by sundial— how well we have done.How well we have done, or how badly. Alas,That is a long thought. Let me hope we all pass.
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And the time sundials tellMay be minutes and hours. But it may just as wellBe seconds and sparkles, or seasons and flowers.No, I don't think of time as just minutes and hours.Time can be heartbeats, or bird songs, or miles,Or waves on a beach, or ants in their files(They do move like seconds— just watch their feet go:Tick-tick-tick, like a clock). You'll learn as you growThat whatever there is in a garden, the sunCounts up on its dial. By the time it is doneOur sundial— or someone's— will certainly addAll the good things there are. Yes, and all of the bad.And if anyone's here for the finish, the sunWill have told him— by sundial— how well we have done.How well we have done, or how badly. Alas,That is a long thought. Let me hope we all pass.
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Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.
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There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.
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Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.
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You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
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Nothing goes further toward a man's liberation than the act of surviving his need for character.
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A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest.
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Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation cares about its own identity.
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The success of the poem is determined not by how much the poet felt in writing it, but by how much the reader feels in reading it.
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It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.
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Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said we're not free-spenders doesn't know our likes.
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Boys are the cash of war.
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