Charles Simic Quotes

Best Quotes by Charles Simic (Top 10)

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.
Charles Simic
Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
Charles Simic
If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.
Charles Simic
He who cannot howl will not find his pack.
Charles Simic
One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.
Charles Simic
Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.
Charles Simic
Silence is the only language god speaks.
Charles Simic
When people ask me how to find happiness in life I tell them, First learn how to cook.
Charles Simic
For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas.
Charles Simic
The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.
Charles Simic

I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
Charles Simic
Making art in America is about saving one's soul.
Charles Simic
Here in the United States, we speak with reverence of authentic experience. We write poems about our daddies taking us fishing and breaking our hearts by making us throw the little fish back into the river. We even tell the reader the kind of car we were driving, the year and the model, to give the impression that it’s all true. It’s because we think of ourselves as journalists of a kind. Like them, we’ll go anywhere for a story. Don’t believe a word of it. As any poet can tell you, one often sees better with eyes closed than with eyes wide open.
Charles Simic
A poem is an invitation to a voyage. As in life, we travel to see fresh sights.
Charles Simic
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.
Charles Simic
The stars know everything, So we try to read their minds. As distant as they are, We choose to whisper in their presence.
Charles Simic