John Berryman > Quotes

“You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.”
― John Berryman

“I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.”
― John Berryman

“We must travel in the direction of our fear.”
― John Berryman

“Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place.”
― John Berryman

“These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand.
They are only meant to terrify & comfort.”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“Them lady poets must not marry, pal.”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“One must be ruthless with one’s own writing or someone else will be.”
― JOHN BERRYMAN

“I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.”
― John Berryman

“There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).”
― John Berryman, Recovery

“The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.”
― John Berryman

“Them lady poets must not marry, pal . . . It is a true error to marry with poets / or to be by them.”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,
who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.”
― John Berryman, 77 Dream Songs

“ Two daiquiris
withdrew into a corner of a gorgeous room
and one told the other a lie.”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“something has been said for sobriety but very little.”
― John Berryman

“That is our ‘pointed task. Love & die.”
― John Berryman

“I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature, ”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“I cry. Evil dissolves, and love, like foam;
that love. Prattle of children powers me home,
my heart claps like the swan’s
under a frenzy of who love me and who shine.”
― John Berryman

“Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“…Henry is tired of winter,
& haircuts, & a squeamish comfy ruin-prone proud national
mind, & Spring (in the city so called)
Henry likes Fall.
Hé would be prepared to líve in a world of Fáll
for ever, impenitent Henry.
But the snows and summers grieve and dream;

These fierce & airy occupations, and love,
raved away so many of Henry’s years
it is a wonder that, with in each hand
one of his own mad books and all,
ancient fires for eyes, his head full
& his heart full, he's making ready to move on.”
― John Berryman, 77 Dream Songs

“Listen, for poets are feigned to lie, and I
For you a liar am a thousand times . . . .”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“However things hurt, men hurt worse.”
― John Berryman, 77 Dream Songs

“I have a tiny little secret hope that, after a decent period of silence and prose, I will find myself in some almost impossible life situation and will respond to this with outcries of rage, rage and love, such as the world has never heard before. Like Yeats's great outburst at the end of his life. This comes out of a feeling that endowment is a very small part of achievement. I would rate it about fifteen or twenty percent, Then you have historical luck, personal luck, health, things like that, then you have hard work, sweat. And you have ambition. The incredible difference between the achievement of A and the achievement of B is that B wanted it, so he made all kinds of sacrifices. A could have had it, but he didn’t give a damn.[...]

But what I was going on to say is that I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business. Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing. And I think that what happens in my poetic work in the future will probably largely depend not on my sitting calmly on my ass as I think, "Hmm, hmm, a long poem again? Hmm," but on being knocked in the face, and thrown flat, and given cancer, and all kinds of other things short of senile dementia. At that point, I'm out, but short of that, I don't know. I hope to be nearly crucified,”
― John Berryman

“Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored means you have no inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.”
― John Berryman

“Hunger was constitutional with him,
women, cigarettes, liquor, need need need
until he went to pieces.
The pieces sat up & wrote. They did not heed
their piecedom but kept very quietly on
among the chaos.”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“A mind so dark it made one wonder if the Renaissance had ever really taken place.”
― John Berryman

“The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who’s there?”
― John Berryman, 77 Dream Songs

“My psychiatrist can lick your psychiatrist.”
― John Berryman, 77 Dream Songs

“The splendour & the lose grew all the same, Sire.”
― John Berryman, The Dream Songs

“They say we have weak wills. Do you know about the two drunks who went to the film of The Lost Weekend. Came out staggering. "My God I'll never take another drink," said the first. "My God I'll never go to another movie." How's that for commitment?”
― John Berryman, Recovery