Quotes by : Ben Lerner

Our contempt for any particular poem must be perfect, be total, because only a ruthless reading that....

Laser technology has fulfilled our people's ancient dream of a blade so fine that the person it cuts....

Poetry arises from the desire to get beyond the finite and the historical—the human world of violence....

And when you are foolish enough to identify yourself as a poet, your interlocutors will often ask: A....

I don’t want what we’re doing to just end up as notes for a novel.

I believe she imbued my body thus, finding every touch enhanced by ambiguity of intention, as if it too....

I could displace the mystery of my speech onto writing, the latter perhaps recharging the former

Poetry": What kind of art assumes the dislike of its audience and what kind of artist aligns herself....

I tended to find lines of poetry beautiful only when I encountered them quoted in prose, in the essays....

There were the usual exhortations to purity – think of the novel not as your opportunity to get rich....