CONRAD AIKEN QUOTES
American novelist and poet (1889-1973)
Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass, through many doors to the one door of all.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
And, growing tired, we turn aside at last, remember our secret selves, seek out our towers, lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb; climbing, each, to his little four-square dream of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
There is a widespread notion in the public mind that poetic inspiration has something mysterious and translunar about it, something which altogether escapes human analysis, which it would be almost sacrilege for analysis to touch. The Romans spoke of the poet's divine afflatus, the Elizabethans of his fine frenzy. And even in our own day critics, and poets themselves, are not lacking who take the affair quite as seriously. Our critics and poets are themselves largely responsible for this -- they are a sentimental lot, even when most discerning, and cannot help indulging, on the one hand, in a reverential attitude toward the art, and, on the other, in a reverential attitude toward themselves.
CONRAD AIKEN
Scepticisms: Notes on Contemporary Poetry
Time is a dream ... a destroying dream; it lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas; it covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
All lovely things will have an ending, all lovely things will fade and die, and youth, that's now so bravely spending, will beg a penny by and by.
CONRAD AIKEN
All Lovely Things
Weeks passed, a whirl of lights and sound and laughter, a fever dream, vertiginous, roaring, mad, he quit his job, not caring what came after, and struck out blindly; money enough he had, and life, by Christ, would go now as he bade; he got it by the throat, he was its master; sing! went his whip, and life danced on the faster.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
Whitman had a profound influence on me. That was during my sophomore year when I came down with a bad attack of Whitmanitis. But he did me a lot of good, and I think the influence is discoverable.
CONRAD AIKEN
interview, The Paris Review, winter-spring 1968
Separate we come, and separate we go, and this be it known, is all that we know.
CONRAD AIKEN
self-written obituary
My veins are afire with music, her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light; I shall dream to her secret heart tonight.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!--but time goes on, and will, unheeding, though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn, and the wild days set true hearts bleeding.
CONRAD AIKEN
All Lovely Things
All that is beautiful, and all that looks on beauty with eyes filled with fire, like a lover's eyes: all of this is yours; you gave it to me, sunlight! all these stars are yours; you gave them to me, skies!
CONRAD AIKEN
dedication to his wife, Earth Triumphant: And Other Tales in Verse
Death is one dream out of another flowing.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
Death is a meeting place of sea and sea.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
Life is the thing--the song of life--the eager plow, the thirsty knife!
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth Imperturbable"
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam ... and after a while they will fall to dust and rain; or else we will tear them down with impatient hands; and hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
Oh, Poe, yes. I was reading Poe when I was in Savannah, when I was ten, and scaring myself to death. Scaring my brothers and sisters to death, too.
CONRAD AIKEN
interview, The Paris Review, winter-spring 1968
Forward into the untrodden! Courage, old man, and hold on to your umbrella!
CONRAD AIKEN
"Mr. Arcularis"
A wife? A mistress rather ... he would not wed: that was to stoop in chains, renounce his wings, break body and heart and soul for daily bread, get down and crawl among all crawling things!
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
Youth yearns to youth, full blood loves full blood only.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread; now that I am without you, all is desolate; all that was once so beautiful is dead.
CONRAD AIKEN
Discordants