Wallace Stevens, (1879-1955), American Poet Quotes

The genuine artist is never ''true to life.'' He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life.

They said, "You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are. The man replied, "Things as they are changed upon a blue guitar.

Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.

The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.

Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.

The genuine artist is never 'true to life.' He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life.

The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening.

To be young is all there is in the world. They talk so beautifully about work and having a family and a home (and I do, too, sometimes) -- but it's all worry and head-aches and respectable poverty and forced gushing. Telling people how nice it is, when, in reality, you would give all of your last thirty years for one of your first thirty. Old people are tremendous frauds.

To be young is all there is in the world. They talk so beautifully about work and having a family and a home (and I do, too, sometimes) -- but it's all worry and headaches and respectable poverty and forced gushing. Telling people how nice it is, when, in reality, you would give all of your last thirty years for one of your first thirty. Old people are tremendous frauds.