E.E. Cummings > Quotes

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― E.E. Cummings

“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”
― E.E. Cummings

“Unbeing dead isn't being alive.”
― E.E. Cummings

“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
― E.E. Cummings

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.”
― E.E. Cummings

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
― E.E. Cummings

“I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance”
― E.E. Cummings

“Lovers alone wear sunlight.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Unless you love someone, nothing else makes sense.”
― E.E. Cummings

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.”
― E.E. Cummings

“anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain”
― E.E. Cummings, Selected Poems

“listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go”
― E.E. Cummings

“since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

“I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.”
― E.E. Cummings

“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.”
― E.E. Cummings

“i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star...”
― E.E. Cummings

“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.”
― E.E. Cummings

“The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.”
― E.E. Cummings

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands”
― E.E. Cummings, Selected Poems

“life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

“nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

-excerpt of #35 from "100 Selected Poems”
― E.E. Cummings

“The three saddest things are the ill wanting to be well, the poor wanting to be rich, and the constant traveler saying 'anywhere but here'.”
― E.E. Cummings

“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)”
― E.E. Cummings

“may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit”
― E.E. Cummings

“may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)”
― E.E. Cummings

“love is thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky”
― E.E. Cummings

“may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile”
― E.E. Cummings, 100 Selected Poems

“most people are perfectly afraid of silence”
― E.E. Cummings

“Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.”
― E.E. Cummings

“She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still”
― E.E. Cummings

“let it go -- the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise -- let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go -- the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers -- you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go -- the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things -- let all go
dear
so comes love”
― E.E. Cummings

“One's not half of two; two are halves of one.”
― E.E. Cummings

“a wind has blown the rain away & the sky away & all the leaves away, & the trees stand. i think i, too, have known autumn too long.”
― E.E. Cummings

“when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because.”
― E.E. Cummings

“time is a tree (this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough”
― E.E. Cummings

“Anybody can learn to think, or believe, or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel... the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.”
― E.E. Cummings

“in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me”
― E.E. Cummings

“I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.”
― E.E. Cummings

“l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)o
ne
li
ne
ss”
― E.E. Cummings

“it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.”
― E.E. Cummings

“We can never be born enough.”
― E.E. Cummings

“since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid”
― E.E. Cummings, Complete Poems, 1904-1962

“we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

“Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.”
― E.E. Cummings