Quotes by John Ashbery

• I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.
• The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.
• I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.
• I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.
• There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.