James Merrill Quotes & Sayings

“At college I'd seen my dead frog's limbs twitch under some applied stimulus or other - seen, but hadn't believed. Didn't dream of thinking beyond or around what I saw.”

“And, as I have said, it's made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren't external, how astonishing the mediums become! Victor Hugo said of his voices that they were like his own mental powers multiplied by five.”

“The simplest science book is over my head.”

“I'd like to think the scientists need us - but do they? Did Newton need Blake?”

“Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.”

“Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem.”

“Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays.”

“But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice.”

“In life, there are no perfect affections.”

“Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images.”