01UndatedThe final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
03UndatedI am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
04UndatedAfter the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
05UndatedI do not know which to prefer,The beauty of inflectionsOr the beauty of innuendosThe blackbird whistlingOr just after.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
09UndatedThe exceeding brightness of this early sunMakes me conceive how dark I have become.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
12UndatedThe Poem That Took The Place Of A MountainThere it was, word for word, The poem that took the place of a mountain. He breathed its oxygen, Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table. It reminded him how he had needed A place to go to in his own direction How he had recomposed the pines, Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds For the outlook that would be right, Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion: The exact rock where his inexactness Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged Where he could lie and gazing down at the sea, Recognize his unique and solitary home.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
14UndatedAfter the leaves have fallen, we returnTo a plain sense of things. It is as ifWe had come to an end of the imagination,Inanimate in an inert savoir.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
15UndatedA pear should come to the table popped with juice,Ripened in warmth and served in warmth. On termsLike these, autumn beguiles the fatalist.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
16UndatedThe way through the worldIs more difficult to find than the way beyond it.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
18UndatedLet be be finale of seem.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
22UndatedThe Plot Against The GiantFirst GirlWhen this yokel comes maundering,Whetting his hacker,I shall run before him,Diffusing the civilest odorsOut of geraniums and unsmelled flowers.It will check him.Second GirlI shall run before him,Arching cloths besprinkled with colorsAs small as fish-eggs.The threadsWill abash him.Third GirlOh, la...le pauvre!I shall run before him,With a curious puffing.He will bend his ear then.I shall whisperHeavenly labials in a world of gutturals.It will undo him.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗
24UndatedDeath is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.Wallace Stevens / quote ↗