The Collected Poems, Vol. 1 Quotes

“The noiseless wheels of my car
rush with a crackling sound over
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“And a church spire sketched on the sky,
of sheet metal and open beams, to resemble
a church spire”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“that process of miraculous verisimilitude, that great copying which evolution has followed, repeating move for move every move that it made in the past”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“* S * * O * * D * * A * * * *”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“papers of various shades sticking out from under others, throwing the printing out of line: portrait of all that which we have lost,”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“The same things exist, but in a different condition when energized by the imagination.”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“Her body is not so white as
anemone petals nor so smooth--nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
thefield by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand's span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over--
or nothing.

— William Carlos Williams, “Queen-Anne’s Lace,” The Collected Poems: Volume I 1909-1939, edited by Christopher MacGowan. (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1938)”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“the sky goes out if you should fail.”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!

— William Carlos Williams, from “Danse Russe,” The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939, edited by Christopher MacGowan.”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!

from “Danse Russe”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“Vast and grey, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and grey, and―
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
―my head is in the air
but who am I . . ?
And amazed my heart leaps at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me.”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“RIPOSTE Love is like water or the air my townspeople; it cleanses, and dissipates evil gases. It is like poetry too and for the same reasons. Love is so precious my townspeople that if I were you I would have it under lock and key— like the air or the Atlantic or like poetry!”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939

“Meanwhile, the old man who goes about gathering dog-lime walks in the gutter without looking up and his tread is more majestic than that of the Episcopal minister approaching the pulpit of a Sunday. These things astonish me beyond words.”
― William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems, Vol. 1: 1909-1939