Howard Nemerov > Quotes

“Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.”
― Howard Nemerov

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely; and if you surrender your personal responsibility to a government which promises to take care of you, they will only take care of themselves.”
― Howard Nemerov

“[T]eaching has been for me an education (Lord knows what it has been for my students).”
― Howard Nemerov

“Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow`s speed.”
― Howard Nemerov

“I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier.”
― Howard Nemerov

“I like all my children, even the squat and ugly ones.”
― Howard Nemerov

“I have a plot, but not much happens.”
― Howard Nemerov

“I have become a gate
To the ruined city, dry, / Indestructible by fire.”
― Howard Nemerov

“The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me.”
― Howard Nemerov

“A peels an apple, while B kneels to God,
C telephones to D, who has a hand
On E’s knee, F coughs, G turns up the sod
For H’s grave, I do not understand
But J is bringing one clay pigeon down
While K brings down a nightstick on L’s head,
And M takes mustard, N drives to town,
O goes to bed with P, and Q drops dead,
R lies to S, but happens to be heard
By T, who tells U not to fire V
For having to give W the word
That X is now deceiving Y with Z,
Who happens, just now to remember A
Peeling an apple somewhere far away.”
― Howard Nemerov

“Poetry is a means of seeing invisible things and saying unspeakable things about them.”
― Howard Nemerov

“R.J. Reynolds owns a subsidiary called RJR Packaging, which produces packaging used on many food products for both human and pet consumption.[276] They also produce packaging for many medical devices and over-the-counter medications, as well as personal care, coffee, and confectionary products.[277] In order to remain in business, a company must be profitable. In order to remain profitable in the face of extensive, long-term compulsory levies by state governments via the tobacco settlement, the costs of products must go up so that income remains higher than expenses. Thus, Altria can raise prices on their Kraft food products you buy in order to pay off their tobacco settlement. R.J. Reynolds can pass along the cost by raising packaging costs for manufacturers of many different types of consumer products, who pass the increased production costs along to you.”
― Howard Nemerov, Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn't It Working?

“Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry”

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.”
― Howard Nemerov, Sentences

“The tobacco settlement money went to lawyers and to governments, which effectively turned the money into a tax and then spent it on state bureaucracy. Regular folk did not receive any tax refund checks, nor did we see lower health insurance premiums, but we did pay more for everyday products not related to smoking. This means we are, in effect, paying billions of dollars in additional tax besides the billions in legal fees because of the tobacco settlement, as well as funding the next legal campaign to collect another large pay-day in contingency fees. It is very interesting to note during the tobacco suit that, while claiming various individuals were being victimized, or medical costs were mounting from misleading advertising or dishonest business practices, it was lawyers and governments, not the people nor their insurance companies, that collected all the loot. This the type of litigation did nothing to improve your life and it raised your cost of living.”
― Howard Nemerov, Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn't It Working?

“Our easy bones groaned, our flesh baked
on one side and shuddered on the other; and each man
thought bitterly about primitive simplicity
and decadence, and how he had been ruined
by civilization and forced by circumstances
to drink and smoke and sit up all night
inspecting those perfectly arbitrary cards
until he was broken-winded as a trout on a rock
and had no use for the doctrines of Jean Jacques
Rousseau, and could no longer afford
a savagery whether noble or not;”
― Howard Nemerov

“But all that whalebone came from whales.
And all the whales lived in the sea,
In calm beneath the troubled glass,
Until the needle drew their blood.
I see her standing in the hall,
Where the mirror’s lashed to blood and foam,
And the black flukes of agony
Beat at the air till the light blows out.”
― Howard Nemerov