Karl Shapiro

Quotes

• “Writing, I crushed an insect with my nail And thought nothing at all. A bit of wing Caught my eye then, a gossamer so frail And exquisite, I saw in it a thing That scorned the grossness of the thing I wrote. It hung upon my finger like a sting.”
• “A leg I noticed next, fine as a mote, "And on this frail eyelash he walked," I said, "And climbed and walked like any mountain-goat."”
• “Then in my heart a fear Cried out, "A life — why, beautiful, why dead!" It was a mite that held itself most dear, So small I could have drowned it with a tear.”
• “As a third generation American I grew up with the obsessive idea of personal liberty which engrosses all Americans except the oldest and richest families.”
• “The public has an unusual relationship to the poet: It doesn't even know that he is there.”
• “Words like “spokesman” and “touchstone” took me completely by surprise. For very real reasons. Not only had I been out of the country when my first two books were published, but I have always been “out of the country” in the sense that I never had what ordinarily is thought of as a literary life, or been part of a literary group. What psychiatrists nowadays call a support system. I never had any of that and still don’t.”

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