Marianne Moore

"I like a long dress on a woman, I do not like to see a woman look like a man."

"The mind is an enchanting thing."

"Omit needless words."

"If you wish an interesting essay read all that the other side has to say."

"There is a merely tolerable alternative to absolutely everything that is unsatisfactory to us, hard as it is to believe."

"Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads in them."

"I dislike Adam, but God likes him: absence of hypocrisy is the hardest test of all."

"Ecstasy affords the occasion and expediency determines the form."

"Make hay while the sun shines."

"Courage is armor."

"I would like to be that strange thing called free."

"The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence."

"Beauty is everlasting and dust is for a time."

"We are not competent to palliate the nationalist spirit."

"A Picasso is worth discussing, but what else matters?"

"Perfection is too steep."

"The cure for loneliness is solitude."

"We are suffering from too much sarcasm."

"The writer is trapped by his or her subject matter."

"These things are not baubles."

"We must be as clear as our natural reticence allows us to be."

"I wonder what it is that you are listening for in music."

"Real enough, but just as unreal, is the world of art."

"Imagination as present conflict between competing principles."

"One detects creative power by its capacity to conquer one."

"You may wonder whether I am not being ironical."

"The only population method that is entirely safe is the Malthusian."

"Clarity is essential, but must not be purchased at the price of depth."

"I would like to have been a naturalist."

"We are governed by what we love."