John Ashbery Quotes

I was never a prisoner to my footballing status.

I don't want to achieve immortality by being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

If we were doomed to live forever, we would scarcely be aware of the beauty around us.

What is human is immortal!

All men desire to be immortal.

Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life.

[Core concepts: Human beings all have souls. Souls are software objects. Software is not immortal.]

If love is what is held to make us immortal, hatred is the reverse.

If you want to live your whole life free from pain,you must either be a god or a corpse.

Time is not your enemy, forever is.

Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.

Immortality--twin sister of Eternity.

I have heard that death takes us away from ill things, not from good. I have heard that when we pronounce the name of man we pronounce the belief of immortality.

Only in unawareness you are mortal. In awareness you are immortal.

Here's my question: What age are you when you're in Heaven?

We die, and we do not die.

He does not exist here, with me, but flesh that does not exist will never die, and promises unmade are never broken.

Being free brings a lightness, a carefree surrender to all that is happening around you, and, above all, an acceptance of reality.

I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.

If you are not successful, that means you're not making enough mistakes.

Immortality is the only thing which doesn't tolerate being postponed.

There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end.

Be wild; that is how to clear the river.