Quotes by George Oppen

• Truth, also is the pursuit of it.
• A pure mathematical series would be one in which each term is derived from the preceding term by a rule.
• Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.
• The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.
• The situation of the Old Left was the theory of Socialist Realism, etc. It seemed pointless to argue. We stayed carefully away from people who wrote for the New Masses.
• There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.
• Things explain each other, not themselves.
• A discrete series is a series of terms each of which is empirically derived, each one of which is empirically true. And this is the reason for the fragmentary character of those poems.