John Ciardi
John Ciardi
John Anthony Ciardiwas an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and directed the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont. In 1959, Ciardi published a book on how to read, write, and teach poetry, How Does a Poem Mean?, which has proven to be among the most-used books of its...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionDramatist
Date of Birth24 June 1916
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone
Bah! You asked for it. This is your life. The price is right enough. You've got no secrets. People are . . . well, never mind. But tell me, boys and girls and Federal gentlemen, has anyone had time to think of Khrushchev lately?
It's not a how-to-do-it school but more nearly a confessional in which people who have spent their lives at the writing process itemize their failures while clinging to their hopes.
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
The day will happen whether or not you get up.
Men marry what they need. I marry you.
Let our love be like an arch- two weaknesses leaning together to form one strength.
The classroom should be an entrance into the world, not an escape from it.
Every game ever invented by mankind, is a way of making things hard for the fun of it!
You have to fall in love with hanging around words.
Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
A dollar saved is a quarter earned.
Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.
There's nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.