William Carlos Williams

A man isn’t a block that remains stationary though the psychologists treat him so — and most take an insane pride in believing it. … The arts have a complexrelation to society. The poet isn’t a fixed phenomenon, no more is his work.

One thing I am convinced more and more is true and that is this: the only way to be truly happy is to make others happy. When you realize that and take advantage of the fact, everything is made perfect.

It's a strange world made up of disappointments for the most part.

Why do we live? Most of us need the very thing we never ask for. 

Poets are being pursued by the philosophers today, out of the poverty of philosophy. God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.

Well —
all things turn bitter in the end
whether you choose the right or
the left way
    and —
dreams are not a bad thing.

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches —
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter.