But when the pen is in his hand he has to write by itch and twitch, though certainly his itch and twitch are intimately conditioned by all his past itching and twitching, and by all his past theorizing about them.
– John Ciardi
Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.
– John Ciardi
It's not a how-to-do-it school but more nearly a confessional in which people who have spent their lives at the writing process itemize their failures while clinging to their hopes.
– John Ciardi
Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.
– John Ciardi
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
– John Ciardi
Nothing goes further toward a man's liberation than the act of surviving his need for character.
– John Ciardi
Poetry lies its way to the truth.
– John Ciardi
The day will happen whether or not you get up.
– John Ciardi
The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.
– John Ciardi
What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.
– John Ciardi
Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.
– John Ciardi
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
– John Ciardi
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
– John Ciardi
The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.
– John Ciardi
It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.
– John Ciardi
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.
– John Ciardi
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.