Author: Philip Levine

Quotes

I'm seventy-one now, so it's hard to imagine a dramatic change.

I'm seventy-one now, so it's hard to imagine a dramatic change.

- Philip Levine

My mother carried on and supported us; her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.

My mother carried on and supported us; her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.

- Philip Levine

I'm saying look, here they come, pay attention. Let your eyes transform what appears ordinary, commonplace, into what it is, a moment in time, an observed fragment of eternity.

I'm saying look, here they come, pay attention. Let your eyes transform what appears ordinary, commonplace, into what it is, a moment in time, an observed fragment of eternity.

- Philip Levine

The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.

The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.

- Philip Levine

I'm afraid we live at the mercy of a power, maybe a God, without mercy. And yet we find it, as I have, from others.

I'm afraid we live at the mercy of a power, maybe a God, without mercy. And yet we find it, as I have, from others.

- Philip Levine

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

- Philip Levine

I listen to jazz about three hours a day. I love Louis Armstrong.

I listen to jazz about three hours a day. I love Louis Armstrong.

- Philip Levine

There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory.

There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory.

- Philip Levine

But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity.

But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity.

- Philip Levine

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