John Barton Quotes

Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their lives and so inevitably write autobiographical verse. ~ John Barton

I became intrigued with colour theory. The absurd pronouncements of the Colour Institute, a group that decides what colours are hot each year or season, amused me. ~ John Barton

I have become intrigued with the combining of seemingly unrelated ideas or images, or the drawing upon the many, sometimes dissimilar, meanings a word might have. ~ John Barton

The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be, if only for the fact that our lives have become busier: jobs, children, and the like. ~ John Barton

Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem. ~ John Barton

To me many short poems read and write like beginnings that simply whet my appetite; I want to get over that. ~ John Barton

In the past, poetry came in the form of spells and chants used to effect change. ~ John Barton

Who is the ideal reader? God only knows. ~ John Barton

I find it exhausting to administer a magazine without an office or paid staff. ~ John Barton

I have always been very obsessed with time. Time's passage makes us all very vulnerable and because we all experience it in our own way, it can make us feel very alone. ~ John Barton

My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us, we want to hold on to certain moments, we don't want our lives to end. ~ John Barton

We are comfortable with the fact that we cannot know personally what happened in the world before we were born, yet we are uncomfortable with the notion that we will stop engaging with time at some point in the future. ~ John Barton

I consider a poem to be a kind of experiment where a number of elements are brought together under test conditions to see how they will interact to create meaning or relevance. ~ John Barton

The essence of a religious approach to the world, it seems to me, is to be found, not in the imposition of theological dogma, but in the recognition of what is actually there. ~ John Barton

If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect. ~ John Barton

Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense. ~ John Barton

My heartfelt appreciation goes out to Jan Zwicky, Don McKay, John Barton, Barry Dempster, Carolyn Forché and Elizabeth Philips for their masterful eyes and minds. ~ Leigh Kotsilidis

You can never step into the same book twice, because you are different each time you read it. ~ John Barton

Bribes over two dollars are tax deductible ~ Melina Marchetta

An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive. ~ John Barton

A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate. ~ John Barton

I sometimes like to tinker with poems that have failed, ones that I have sent aside. Even years afterward, I will revisit them if there is something about them that I cannot give up on. ~ John Barton

The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality. ~ John Barton

Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools. ~ John Barton

There's this thing called the competence-deviance hypothesis," she explained. "It says that the more competent an individual is in his field - the more respected he is in the community - the more his eccentric behavior will be tolerated by others. "But the opposite is true for young people, because they have not done anything to earn respect in a community. So when they do weird things they are treated like dangerous animals and hustled into cages. It seems unfair when older, respectable members of the community do stuff that's even stranger and people just shake their heads and smile at their eccentricity." I ~ John Elder Robison

We in Ireland have not been immune from the bigotry and the indifference which manifested itself in Europe this century ~ John Bruton

I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut. ~ John Berryman

Every Southerner, I think, knows people like Bill Clinton, maybe not quite as smart and maybe not quite as liberal, but kind of a glad-handing, country-club yuppie Southerner. The problem is we don't have labels for middle-class Southerners. ~ John Shelton Reed

'Freedom dieters' often do well with programs that incorporate pretty basic rules, like intermittent fasting - simply don't eat for X period of time, then eat healthy foods. Very simple. ~ John Romaniello

One of the last books I read was 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. It gives a really good behind-the-scenes look at the campaigns. I didn't ask the president how accurate it was. I wouldn't ask him that. ~ Gary Locke

Do you not comprehend this in America, how your unions have been all but destroyed in the last 30 years? Do you not understand why your local US Postal Service offices are cracked, neglected, and almost derelict buildings, with their staffs downsizing and limiting their days of service? The corporately owned US Congress is destroying the postal service as part of its act, playing you for a fool while wearing a two-party (two-headed) monster mask. One sadistic party acts as a wrecking ball hurled at a wall of political inertia that is the second and masochistic party. ~ John Hogue

Augustine, who assumed that Genesis 1 was chapter 1 in a book that contained the literal words of God, and that Genesis 2 was the second chapter in the same book, put the two chapters together and read the latter as a sequel. Genesis 2, he assumed, described the fall from the perfection and original goodness of creation depicted in chapter 1. So almost inevitably the Christian scriptures from the fourth century on were interpreted against the background of this (mis) understanding.

The primary trouble with this theory was that by the fourth century of the Common Era there were no Jews to speak of left in the Christian movement, and therefore the only readers and interpreters of the ancient Hebrew myths were Gentiles, who had no idea what these stories originally meant. Consequently, they interpreted them as perfection established by God in chapter 1, followed by perfection ruined by human beings in chapter 2. Why was that a problem? Well I, for one, have never known a Jewish scripture scholar to treat the Garden of Eden story in the same way that Gentiles treat it. Jews tend to see this story not as a narrative about sin entering the world, but as a parable about the birth of self-consciousness. It is, for the Jews, not a fall into sin, but a step into humanity. It is the birth of a new relationship with God, changing from master-servant to interdependent cooperation. The forbidden fruit was not from an apple tree, as so many who don't bother to read the text seem ~ John Shelby Spong

Ninjas don't splash other ninjas, ~ John Green

The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music. ~ John Drinkwater

God continues to speak through what He has spoken. ~ John Stott

I am always surprised to go into a bar in Boston and three televisions are playing different channels, all at once. We are constantly surprised by this noise and television. It means that's what we are going to get, because we always get everything eventually. ~ John Gimlette

We think about our country and the big issues that we face in this country; creating jobs, making sure people can keep their jobs, the need for rising wages, whether our children when they graduate from college can find a job, protecting the homeland, destroying ISIS, rebuilding defense. These are all the things that we need to focus on but we'll never get there if we're divided. We'll never get there if republicans and democrats just fight with one another. ~ John Kasich

If by that you mean that I dislike celebrity magazines, prefer food to anorexia, refuse to watch TV shows about models, and hate the color pink, then yes. I am proud to be not really a girl. ~ John Green

WE DO NOT SEE with our eyes. We see with our brains. ~ John Medina

In the newborn child is realized the common good of the family. ~ Pope John Paul II

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust ... All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. (Isa. 40:15, 17) It is true that we have been made his children, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17). But we will never treasure that truth the way we should until we tremble at this one. Oh, that every person in this postmodern, self-exalting world would come to feel and say, I am totally dependent on God, and immeasurably less valuable than he. And this is the beginning of my joy. ~ John Piper

No matter how hard Evil tries, it can never quite match up to the power of Good, because Evil is ultimately self-destructive. Evil may set out to corrupt others, but in the process corrupts itself. ~ John Connolly

We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense this is aparticipatory universe. ~ John Archibald Wheeler

I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretence Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes! I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet! ~ Arthur Miller

John Wells and Christopher Chulack were pretty honest from the get-go in our first meeting about 'Southland.' They were looking to create characters that were believable in the environment of the LAPD - multi-dimensional, layered characters with real flaws; good-hearted cops mixed with the perfect amount of heroism and irony. ~ Shawn Hatosy

I didn't know whether to trust Alaska, and I'd certainly had enough of her unpredictability - cold one day, sweet the next; irresistibly flirty one moment, resistibly obnoxious the next. I preferred the Colonel: At least when he was cranky, he had a reason. ~ John Green

We agree that language functions in a certain way so that we can understand each other; but within that are built all sorts of sentimental codes, codes of authenticity, codes of certain kinds of emotion. ~ John Yau

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.
It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for
heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not
the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we
drink in every night. ~ John Piper

Politics is chiefly a function of culture, at the heart of culture is morality, and at the heart of morality is religion. ~ Richard John Neuhaus

Fortune, men say, doth give too much to many, But yet she never gave enough to any. ~ John Harington

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are. ~ John Ruskin

She was under her husband's headship, yet she was in many ways an even more glorious creature than he, treasured and extolled by him. They were partners and companions, fellow-laborers in the garden. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid. ~ John Maynard Keynes

You can set up an altar to God in your minds by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft. ~ Saint John Chrysostom

Romance Of A Youngest Daughter"

Who will wed the Dowager's youngest daughter,
The Captain? filled with ale?
He moored his expected boat to a stake in the water
And stumbled on sea-legs into the Hall for mating,
Only to be seduced by her lady-in-waiting,
Round-bosomed, and not so pale.


Or the thrifty burgher in boots and fancy vest
With considered views of marriage?
By the tidy scullery maid he was impressed
Who kept that house from depreciation and dirt,
But wife does double duty and takes no hurt,
So he rode her home in his carriage.


Never the spare young scholar antiquary
Who was their next resort;
They let him wait in the crypt of the Old Library
And found him compromised with a Saxon book,
Claiming his truelove Learning kept that nook
And promised sweet disport.


Desirée (of a mother's christening) never shall wed
Though fairest child of her womb;
"We will have revenge," her injured Ladyship said,
"Henceforth the tightest nunnery be thy bed
By the topmost stair! When the ill-bred lovers come
We'll say, She is not at home. ~ John Crowe Ransom

Deed, not words shall speak me. ~ John Fletcher

Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. ~ John Knox

I'm an old-fashioned person and I happen to believe in traditional marriage. ~ John Kasich

I watch one news channel until my soul can't take it anymore. It's the background of my life. ~ John Oliver

As sad as I so often was, and I was often overwhelmed with sadness, I never admitted it, and I don't recall ever having said aloud that I was sad. I tried not to think about it, about all the sad things, because I had this feeling that if I started to think about it, that was all I would ever think of again. I often had a nightmare of falling down into a deep dark well that I could never climb out of. But then there was the other part of me that honestly believed I wasn't sad at all, and I had little compassion for those who dwelled in sadness. Strange how that works. You would think that it would be the other way around. ~ John William Tuohy

Life is legal tender, and individual character stamps its value. We are from a thousand mints, and all genuine. Despite our infinitely diverse appraisements, we make change for one another. So many ideals planted are worth the great gold of Socrates; so many impious laws broken are worth John Brown. ~ Louise Imogen Guiney

There is no golden mean between these two extremes; either this early life must become low in our estimation, or it will have our inordinate love. ~ John Calvin

This was a report from a single source. It was an established and reliable line of reporting. It was quoted from a senior Iraqi military officer in a position to know this information. ~ John Scarlett

If a church offers no truth that is not available in the general culture - in, for instance, the editorials of the New York Times or, for that matter, of National Review - there is not much reason to pay it attention. ~ Richard John Neuhaus

The problem ... is that most members of Congress don't pay attention to what's going on. ~ John McCain

Don't you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don't love the crazy, sullen bitch. ~ John Green

It is necessary men should be tried and purged and purified and made perfect through suffering. ~ John Taylor

All I care about in this goddamn life are me, my drums, and you. ~ John Hughes

When we become isolated, we are prone to being damaged; our minds lose their flexibility and natural kindness; we become vulnerable to fear and negativity. The sense of belonging keeps you in balance amidst the inner and outer immensities. The ancient and eternal values of human life - truth, unity, goodness, justice, beauty, and love are all statements of belonging; they are also the secret intention and dream of human longing. ~ John O'Donohue

You've got to be happy if they get your facts right. Since January I don't think I've recognized a damned thing that I've filed. I just pour everything out of the boot. Otherwise you get a phone call at three in the morning asking why you left out that the candidate had his teeth drilled that morning. ~ John Lindsay

Visiting the past is something like visiting a foreign country: they do some things the same and some things differently, but above all else, they make us more aware of what we call 'home. ~ John Arnold

If I could do it all over again," he said, his speech slow and vaguely mangled by his massive lower lip, "I'd just let myself be trampled to death by the Satan Pig. ~ John Green