Quotes From "Selfportrait In A Convex Mirror" By John Ashbery

Its a bit mad. Too bad, I mean, that getting to know each just for a fleeting second Must be replaced by unperfect knowledge of the featureless whole Like some pocket history of the world, so general As to constitute a sob or wail John Ashbery

It is the lumps and trials That tell us whether we shall be known And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star. John Ashbery

You bad birds, But God shall not punish you, you Shall be with us in heaven, though less Conscious of your happiness, perhaps, than we. Hell is a not quite satisfactory heaven, probably, But you are the fruit and jewels Of my arrangement .. . John Ashbery

The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes John Ashbery

I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free. John Ashbery