A. R. Ammons Quotes

“Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone.”

“Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.”

“Everything is discursive opinion instead of direct experience.”

“In nature there are few sharp lines.”

“There's something to be said in favor of working in isolation in the real world.”

“To change the world by bullets or ballots was a useless procedure. If the workers ever did get a majority of either, they would have the envy and greed in their hearts and would be chained by these as much as by the chains of the master class. And the State which they would like to call a Cooperative Commonwealth would be based on power; the state would not wither away but would grow. Therefore the only revolution worthwhile was the one-man revolution within the heart. Each one could make this by himself and not need to wait on a majority.”

“Oh judge! Your damn laws! The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them.”

“To be saved is here, local and mortal”

“Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. Having once experienced the mystery, plenitude, contradiction, and composure of a work of art, we afterward have a built-in resistance to the slogans and propaganda of oversimplification that have often contributed to the destruction of human life. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization.”

“You may have started a war,” Jean growled. “All for what?”Ammon growled back. “To take back this world! To never live in fear again!”