William Carlos Williams Quotes about Art

The only realism in art is of the imagination.

The only realism in art is of the imagination.

Art, Imagination, Realism

William Carlos Williams (1971). “Imaginations”, p.15, New Directions Publishing

But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn't declaim or explain, it presents.

William Carlos Williams

Art, Poetry, Sensual

The art of the poem nowadays is something unstable; but at least the construction of the poem should make sense; you should know where you stand. Many questions haven't been answered as yet. Our poets may be wrong; but what can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past.

William Carlos Williams

Art, Past, Vision

"The Paris Review : Writers at Work", 3rd series, Viking Penguin, (p. 29), April 1962.

Who isn't frustrated and does not prove it by his actions - if you want to say so? But through art the psychologically maimed may become the most distinguished man of his age. Take Freud for instance.

William Carlos Williams

Art, Men, Frustrated

William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.53, New Directions Publishing

When a man makes a poem, makes it, mind you, he takes words as he finds them interrelated about him and composes them - without distortion which would mar their exact significances - into an intense expression of his perceptions and ardors that they may constitute a revelation in the speech that he uses. It isn't what he says that counts as a work of art, it's what he makes, with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity.

William Carlos Williams

Art, Men, Expression

William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.54, New Directions Publishing

THE THOUGHTFUL LOVER Deny yourself all half things. Have it or leave it. But it will keep—or it is not worth the having. Never start anything you can't finish— However do not lose faith because you are starved! She loves you she says. Believe it —tomorrow. But today the particulars of poetry that difficult art require your whole attention.

William Carlos Williams

Art, Believe, Love You

But the thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is always one: the virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses, close to the nose. It is this difficulty that sets a value upon all works of art and makes them a necessity. The senses witnessing what is immediately before them in detail see a finality which they cling to in despair, not knowing which way to turn. Thus this so-called natural or scientific array becomes fixed, the walking devil of modern life.

William Carlos Williams

Art, Lying, Writing

William Carlos Williams (1920). “Kora in Hell: Improvisations”

Being an art form, verse cannot be "free" in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principle.

William Carlos Williams

Art, Guiding Principles, Form

"Free Verse. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics", 2nd ed., 1975.

The War is the first and only thing in the world today. The arts generally are not, nor is this writing a diversion from that for relief, a turning away. It is the war or part of it, merely a different sector of the field.

William Carlos Williams

Art, War, Writing

William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.53, New Directions Publishing

William Carlos Williams Quotes about Art

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