I love you. I love you, but I’m turning to my verses and my heart is closing like a fist.
Frank O'HaraRead
I don't believe in god, so I don't have to make elaborately sounded structures. ... Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you. ... As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There's nothing metaphysical about it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a perspective on the simplicity of human desires and the limitations of logic derived from pain.
Frank O'Hara's quote challenges the complexity often attributed to existential themes by advocating for a more straightforward approach to life and relationships. He suggests that pain can lead to misguided logical reasoning and emphasizes that human desires, such as wanting attractive clothing, are based on common sense rather than metaphysical explorations. This approach positions human experience as grounded in the tangible rather than in elaborately constructed beliefs.
Themes
PainLogicCommon SenseDesireRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to emphasize the importance of simplicity in understanding our desires during a philosophy class.
More from Frank O'Hara
All quotes →I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'
Frank O'HaraRead
I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!
Frank O'HaraRead
My heart is in my/ pocket. It is poems by Pierre Reverdy.
Frank O'HaraRead
I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is.
Frank O'HaraRead
After the first glass of vodka you can accept just about anything of life even your own mysteriousness you think it is nice that a box of matches is purple and brown and is called La Petite and comes from Sweden for they are words that you know and that is all you know words not their feelings or what they mean and you write because you know them not because you understand them because you don't you are stupid and lazy and will never be great but you do what you know because what else is there?
Frank O'HaraRead
Similar quotes
I had the same sensation as when we watch someone sleep. When asleep we all become children again. Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life, the greatest criminal and most self- absorbed egotist are holy, by a natural magic, as long as they're sleeping. For me there's no discernible difference between killing a child and killing a sleeping man.
Fernando PessoaRead
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Jonathan SacksRead
It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man.
John LennonRead
Where are the dogs going? you people who pay so little attention ask. They are going about their business. And they are very punctilious, without wallets, notes, and without briefcases.
Charles BaudelaireRead
Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal.
R. D. LaingRead
I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year.
Maya AngelouRead