I can't tell you where a poem comes from, what it is, or what it is for: nor can any other man. The reason I can't tell you is that the purpose of a poem is to go past telling, to be recognised by burning.
A. R. AmmonsRead
Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is constantly changing, and even familiar experiences are never identical.
This quote by A. R. Ammons reflects on the nature of experience and perception, suggesting that even when we encounter the same situations or paths repeatedly, our internal states—such as our thoughts, emotions, and physical well-being—alter how we perceive each moment. It emphasizes the idea that every experience is unique, shaped by our ever-changing circumstances and feelings.
Themes
ChangePerceptionExperienceLifeEmotions
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about embracing change, this quote can illustrate how our perspectives shift over time.
More from A. R. Ammons
All quotes →If the greatest god is the stillness all the motions add up to, then we must ineluctably be included.
A. R. AmmonsRead
For though we often need to be restored to the small, concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to be reminded of the large, vague, unlimited, unknown
A. R. AmmonsRead
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
A. R. AmmonsRead
Similar quotes
I have seen firsthand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty go unchallenged.
Desmond TutuRead
I suspect that even most conservatives would prefer to live in the kind of world conjured up in the liberals' imagination rather than in the kind of world we are in fact stuck with.
Thomas SowellRead
Nothing is more generally known than our duties which belong to Christianity; and yet, how amazing is it, nothing is less practiced?
George WhitefieldRead
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. . . look to Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
C. S. LewisRead
She had so mastered the strategies of camouflage that her own history had seemed a series of well-placed mirrors that kept her hidden from herself.
Pat ConroyRead
To make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead