Billy Collins

Poet

1941-03-22

Quotes by Billy Collins

• This is what I think aboutwhen I shovel compostinto a wheelbarrow,and when I fill the long flower boxes,then press into rowsthe limp roots of red impatiens— the instant hand of Deathalways ready to burst forthfrom the sleeve of his voluminous cloak.Then the soil is full of marvels,bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco,red-brown pine needles, a beetle quickto burrow back under the loam.Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue,the clouds a brighter white,and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edgeagainst a round stone,the small plants singingwith lifted faces, and the clickof the sundialas one hour sweeps into the next.

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• though they know in their adult hearts,even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bedfor his appalling behavior,that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,their wives are Dopey Dopeheadsand that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.

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• Is there a better method of departure by night than this quiet bon voyage with an open book, the sole companion who has come to see you off, to wave you into the dark waters beyond language?

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• all they want to dois tie the poem to a chair with ropeand torture a confession out of it.They begin beating it with a hoseto find out what it really means.

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• I could feel the day offering itself to me,and I wanted nothing morethan to be in the moment-but which moment?Not that one, or that one, or that one,

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• The History TeacherTrying to protect his students' innocencehe told them the Ice Age was really justthe Chilly Age, a period of a million yearswhen everyone had to wear sweaters.And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,named after the long driveways of the time.The Spanish Inquisition was nothing morethan an outbreak of questions such asHow far is it from here to Madrid?What do you call the matador's hat?The War of the Roses took place in a garden,and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.The children would leave his classroomfor the playground to torment the weakand the smart,mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,while he gathered up his notes and walked homepast flower beds and white picket fences,wondering if they would believe that soldiersin the Boer War told long, rambling storiesdesigned to make the enemy nod off.

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• But some nights, I must tell you,I go down there after everyone has fallen asleep.I swim back and forth in the echoing blackness.I sing a love song as well as I can,lost for a while in the home of the rain.

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• No one here likes a wet dog.

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• I love to move like a mouse inside this puzzle for the body, balancing the wish to be lost with the need to be found.

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• It is time to float on the waters of the night. Time to wrap my arms around this book and press it to my chest, life preserver in a sea of unremarkable men and women, anonymous faces on the street, a hundred thousand unalphabetized things, a million forgotten hours.

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• I see all of us reading ourselves away from ourselves, straining in circles of light to find more light until the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs that we follow across a page of fresh snow

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• all they want to dois tie the poem to a chair with ropeand torture a confession out of it.They begin beating it with a hoseto find out what it really means.

  Read quote

• I love to move like a mouse inside this puzzle for the body, balancing the wish to be lost with the need to be found.

  Read quote

• No one here likes a wet dog.

  Read quote

• The History TeacherTrying to protect his students' innocencehe told them the Ice Age was really justthe Chilly Age, a period of a million yearswhen everyone had to wear sweaters.And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,named after the long driveways of the time.The Spanish Inquisition was nothing morethan an outbreak of questions such asHow far is it from here to Madrid?What do you call the matador's hat?The War of the Roses took place in a garden,and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.The children would leave his classroomfor the playground to torment the weakand the smart,mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,while he gathered up his notes and walked homepast flower beds and white picket fences,wondering if they would believe that soldiersin the Boer War told long, rambling storiesdesigned to make the enemy nod off.

  Read quote

• This is what I think aboutwhen I shovel compostinto a wheelbarrow,and when I fill the long flower boxes,then press into rowsthe limp roots of red impatiens— the instant hand of Deathalways ready to burst forthfrom the sleeve of his voluminous cloak.Then the soil is full of marvels,bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco,red-brown pine needles, a beetle quickto burrow back under the loam.Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue,the clouds a brighter white,and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edgeagainst a round stone,the small plants singingwith lifted faces, and the clickof the sundialas one hour sweeps into the next.

  Read quote

• though they know in their adult hearts,even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bedfor his appalling behavior,that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,their wives are Dopey Dopeheadsand that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.

  Read quote

• It is time to float on the waters of the night. Time to wrap my arms around this book and press it to my chest, life preserver in a sea of unremarkable men and women, anonymous faces on the street, a hundred thousand unalphabetized things, a million forgotten hours.

  Read quote

• I see all of us reading ourselves away from ourselves, straining in circles of light to find more light until the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs that we follow across a page of fresh snow

  Read quote

• But some nights, I must tell you,I go down there after everyone has fallen asleep.I swim back and forth in the echoing blackness.I sing a love song as well as I can,lost for a while in the home of the rain.

  Read quote