John Ashbery

I don't want to read what is going to slide down easily; there has to be some crunch, a certain amount of resilience.

I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.

I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.

Each servant stamps the reader with a look.

Things can harden meaningfully in the moment of indecision.

Ambiguity supposes eventual resolution of itself whereas certitude implies further ambiguity.

And whether it is Thursday, or the day is stormy, With thunder and rain, or the birds attack each other,We have rolled into another dream.

I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.

Death is a new office building filled with modern furniture A wise thing but which has no purpose for us.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.