TagRandall Jarrell

A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

People who have no secrets from each other never want for subject matter.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

You can’t break an empty promise.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

The dark night of the soul is always three o’clock in the morning.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

It is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can’t read any poetry.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

Happiness is a by-product of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution

An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another.

Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution