John C. Hawkes Quotes

The only thing that exists is torment, lyricism, and the magnificence of language.

Why then we should drop into poetry.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see.

What has always attracted me in life is poetry. Any genre can have poetry. For me, poetry contains truth.

If I had to name my greatest value in life, it would be beauty.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

I have always known what I wanted, and that was beauty... in every form.

My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.

Art is all in the details.

Beauty arises out of human inspiration.

'Flower' is about the sublime.

I'm really into poetry.

Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.

We are surrounded by poetry on all sides.

Harmonious words render ordinary ideas acceptable; less ordinary, pleasant; novel and ingenious ones, delightful. As pictures and statues, and living beauty, too, show better by music-light, so is poetry irradiated, vivified, glorified', and raised into immortal life by harmony.

If you can't give me poetry, can't you give me poetical science?

I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing.

I keep trying to define 'poetry,' but it's so difficult.

Well-written words are music.

I love art, and it plays a huge role in my life. It's definitely one of my greatest joys, and I'm a bit fanatical about certain painters and poets and musicians and sculptors.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.