Kenneth Rexroth Quotes

Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense: The creative act.

Maturity is having the ability to escape categorization.

The holiness of the real Is always there, accessible In total immanence. The nodes Of transcendence coagulate In you, the experiencer, And in the other, the lover.

There have always been those who, though they see tragedy as the outcome of freedom, will nevertheless judge that tragedy is not too high a price to pay.

You don't become a saint until you lead a good life whether in Tibet or Italy or America.

The meaning of life can be revealed but never explained.

It takes great labor to uncover the convincing simple speech of the heart. Poetic candor comes with hard labor, so even does impetuosity and impudence.

Man thrives where angels would die of ecstasy and where pigs would die of disgust.

You learn nothing if you carry with you a journalistic system of values, which is invented to save reporters from experience.

Bohemia is a commune in which the Revolution is over and everyone is a member of the aristocracy

Poetry has ceased to be a public art and has become, as Whitehead said of religion, "What man does with his aloneness.

It is a commonplace that Racine is untranslatable. This is not because his verse is difficult, but because it is not.

As Aristotle said, you have to be an aristocrat or a reactionary to write a good proletarian poem.

An entomologist is not a bug.

Victorian society was homogeneous without being homogenized. It was, to paraphrase the epigram about Parliament, a society of extreme eccentrics who agreed so well that they could afford to differ.

With my own group I like to keep it loose. They have to counter rather than go with me. When they stop I like to be moving.

Did you know I staged the first performance in America of At the Hawk's Well?

Lost in loneliness and pain. Black and unendurable, Thinking of you with every Corpuscle of my flesh, in Every instant of night And day.

Erotic love is one of the highest forms of contemplation.

When the newspapers have got nothing else to talk about, they cut loose on the young. The young are always news. If they are up to something, that's news. If they aren't, that's news too.

Crooked cards and straight whiskey, Slow horses and fast women.

Men who live like Casanova are seldom interested in themselves; their egocentricity does not give them time for egotism.

Art is the reasoned derangement of the senses.

Any talented decadent can make unreality believable. To make reality convincing is another matter, a matter for only the greatest masters.

The basic line in any good verse is cadenced... building it around the natural breath structures of speech.

Love is the garment of knowledge.

I've been around jazz and jazz musicians most of my life.

Making love with you Is like drinking sea water. The more I drink The thirstier I become, Until nothing can slake my thirst But to drink the entire sea.