“To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment”
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Galway Kinnell 10
Poet 1927–2014Related quotes
“Why is it so hard to say no to him? Is this what it's like to be in love with somebody?”
Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Source: The Story of a New Name
“Have as little suspicion as possible and conceal that.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 76
“Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.”
in Rainbow in the Cloud: The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou (2014), p. 68
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: The individual who is self-centered, the individual who is egocentric ends up being very sensitive, a very touchy person. And that is one of the tragic effects of a self-centered attitude, that it leads to a very sensitive and touchy response toward the universe. These are the people you have to handle with kid gloves because they are touchy, they are sensitive. And they are sensitive because they are self-centered. They are too absorbed in self and anything gets them off, anything makes them angry. Anything makes them feel that people are looking over them because of a tragic self-centeredness. That even leads to the point that the individual is not capable of facing trouble and the hard moments of life. One can become so self-centered, so egocentric that when the hard and difficult moments of life come, he cannot face them because he’s too centered in himself. These are the people who cannot face disappointments. These are the people who cannot face being defeated. These are the people who cannot face being criticized. These are the people who cannot face these many experiences of life which inevitably come because they are too centered in themselves. In time, somebody criticizes them, time somebody says something about them that they don’t like too well, time they are disappointed, time they are defeated, even in a little game, they end up broken-hearted. They can’t stand up under it because they are centered in self.
“It was just as if somebody inside him were saying, "Now then, Pooh, time for a little something."”
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Chapter Six.
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Hellenica Bk. 7, as translated by Rex Warner in A History of My Times (1979) p. 398.
