Richard Wilbur Quotes

Richard Wilbur Quotes

"Writing poetry is talking to oneself; yet it is a mode of talking to oneself in which the self disappears; and the product's something that, though it may not be for everybody, is about everybody."

"What's lightly hid is deepest understood."

"All that we do is touched with ocean, and yet we remain on the shore of what we know."

The moral of poem Still citizen sparrow: “Actions speak louder than words”
“a rich heart may be under a poor coat”.

“Pardon him, you
Who dart in the orchard aisles, for it is he
Devours death, mocks mutability” --- Still, Citizen Sparrow

“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than
enough.”  --- William Blake

“I must admit to a continuing respect for Robert Lowell and Richard Wilbur.’’ --- TS Eliot

“the poet speaks not of peculiar and personal things, but of what in himself is most common, most anonymous, most fundamental, most true of all men.” --- Richard Wilbur
“one of the jobs of poetry is to make our fears bravely clear” --- Richard Wilbur
According to Salinger, Richard Wilbur is known for having the “killer-diller line”
Babette Duetsch once commented about Wilbur's poetry, “Here is poetry to be read with the eye, the ear, the heart and the mind”