“Things as they are have been destroyed.
Have I? Am I a man that is dead
At a table on which the food is cold?
Is my thought a memory, not alive?
Is the spot on the floor, there, wine or blood
And whichever it may be, is it mine?”

— Wallace Stevens

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Things as they are have been destroyed. Have I? Am I a man that is dead At a table on which the food is cold? Is my …" by Wallace Stevens?

Wallace Stevens photo

Wallace Stevens278

American poet 1879–1955

Related quotes

“I was dead then alive,
She was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine;
You can pour us out, we won't mind,
As scratch around the mouth of the glass, "My life is no longer mine."”

Paper-Hanger.
Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)

“Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive or be he dead
I'll have his bones to grind my bread.”

Joseph Jacobs book English Fairy Tales

said by the ogre or giant. Now rendered as I'll grind his bones to make my bread.
English Fairy Tales (1890), Preface to English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk

“I — my heart — a gaping heart, enthroned in a radiance of blood. It is mine, it is ours. The heart — that wound which we have. I have compassion on myself.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi

“I'm alive but I have no life. I'm alive but also dead. I'm dead and alive.”

Dean Koontz book Dead and Alive

Source: Dead and Alive

“I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I have drunk my share of wine;
From Trier to Köln there was never a knight
Had a merrier life than mine.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Quoted in Albert Jay Nock's Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 54.
Attributed

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter One

“I am content in here. I have friends. The food is good. All is well. Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine.”

John McAfee (1945) American computer programmer and businessman

Source: on Twitter https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1316801215083225096, 16 October 2020

“Do I have a body? Or have I none?
Am I who I am? Or am I not?
Pondering these questions, I sit
Leaning against the cliff while the years go by
And the green grass grows up between my feet
And the red dust settles on my head
Then men of the world come and thinking me dead
Bring offerings of wine and fruit”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

“There was a treasure in the earth which the Lord loved. I marvelled and thought what it might be, and I was answered in mine understanding: It is a food which is delectable and pleasant to the Lord.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 51

“In 1946 what I call my 'Little Image' began breaking through this [former] gray matter of mine. I felt fantastic relief that something was beginning to happen after all this time when there was nothing, nothing, nothing... The canvas is down on a floor or table and I am working out of a tiny can. In other words, I have to hold the paint so I can move it. But I wouldn’t have been using Duco [industrial paint, like Willem de Kooning did]. My paint would always have been oil and I could get the consistency of a thick pouring quality in it by squeezing it into a can and cutting it with turp [turpetine] – the way I use paint today... The only thing I can say with absolute assurance is that my 'Little Image' work starts about 1946 and ends in 1949.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 77.

Related topics