Franz Wright Quotes & Sayings

“Poetry endures when it possesses passionate and primally sincere clarity in the service of articulating universal human concerns.”

“We know there are poets who are chosen: by what or whom, we no more know than what lies beyond our final breath, or what caused a certain action which resulted in the fulfillment or the desecration and collapse of what we most cared for in life.”

“What I myself experience is indescribable gratitude in the face of God's perpetual and preemptive love, a love which is not contingent upon requital or even belief in His existence.”

“When I'm in certain moods, a conversation will start up in my head, and suddenly I'll realize that the language has reached a very high and interesting level, and then lines and stanzas will just kind of appear, full-blown.”

“I write and have done so primarily for personal pleasure.”

“It's hard for me to grasp that I might somehow be my father's equal in any way.”

“Poetry, just because it is poetry, doesn't mean it is some kind of magic spell.”

“I've always envied people who compose music or paint, because they don't have to be bothered with the sort of crude mess that language normally is, in everyday life and in the way we use it.”

“Beckett's 'Stories and Texts for Nothing' is probably my favorite book.”

“I am in no way different from anyone else, that my predicament, my sense of aloneness or isolation may be precisely what unites me with everyone.”