Jack Gilbert Quotes

I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can.

The heart lies to itself because it must.

We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.

We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.

I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Everyone forgets Icarus also flew.

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. But there’s music in us. Hope is pushed down but the angel flies up again taking us with her.

When I was walking in the mountains with the Japanese man and began to hear the water, he said, 'What is the sound of the waterfall?' 'Silence,' he finally told me.

Why do so manysettle for so little? I don't understand why they're not greedy for what's inside them.

WAKING AT NIGHT The blue river is grey at morning and evening. There is twilight at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end.

We are all burning in time, but each is consumed at his own speed.

We exist with a wind whispering inside and our moon flexing. Amid the ducts, inside the basilica of bones.

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite.

Fame is a lot of fun, but it's not interesting. I loved being noticed and praised, even the banquets. But they didn't have anything that I wanted. After about six months, I found it boring.

What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.

I'm vain enough to think that I've made a successful life. I've had everything I've ever wanted. You can't beat that.

To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Question the bravery. Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.

To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboatcomes slowly out and then goes back is truly worthall the years of sorrow that are to come.

When I was walking in the mountains with the Japanese man and began to hear the water, he said, 'What is the sound of the waterfall?' 'Silence, ' he finally told me.

We are a singularity that makes music out of noise because we must hurry. We make a harvest of loneliness and desiring in the blank wasteland of the cosmos.

Once she said the world was an astonishing animal: light was its spirit and noise was its mind. That it was composed to feed on honor, but did not.

The heart is a foreign country whose language none of us is good at.

I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me nowis a beginning or an end.