James Merrill Quotes

Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.

The day is breaking someone else's heart.

Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays.

At college I'd seen my dead frog's limbs twitch under some applied stimulus or other - seen, but hadn't believed. Didn't dream of thinking beyond or around what I saw.

Class is classlessness.

The simplest science book is over my head.

Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images.

But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice.

In life, there are no perfect affections.