Frank O'Hara Quotes

willow trees, willow trees they remind me of DesdemonaI'm so damned literaryand at the same time the waters rushing past remindme of nothing

I am moved by the multitudes of your intelligence and sometimes, returning, I become the sea— in love with your speed, your heaviness and breath.

… my words are lovewhich willfully parades inits room, refusing to move.

Stars are out and there is seaenough beneath the glistening earthto bear me toward the futurewhich is not so dark. I see.

… and I’ll be happy here and happy there, fullof tea and tears

I am ashamed of my century, but I have to smile.

Andalways embrace things, people earthsky stars, as I do, freely and withthe appropriate sense of space.

I have been to lots of partiesand acted perfectly disgracefulbut I never actually collapsedoh Lana Turner we love you get up

...but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it...

You are the sick prince of my cerise innovations and in your drowning caresses I walk the sea

Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara.O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac

I love you. I love you, but I’m turning to my versesand my heart is closinglike a fist.

When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leafto turn away from the sun -- it loves it there.There's nothing so spiritual about being happybut you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last.

I embraced a cloud, but when I soaredit rained.