John Ashbery Quotes

My eccentricity became direction.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

I do like taking stuff seriously that a lot of people look at as nonsense. I enjoy the insanity of that. And I like the commitment that is needed for that.

Since I was in my early twenties, at ABC, I was always only interested in things that were not already being done.

A comedian sees the world bent. I'm tangent to the circle.

… there is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.

Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind.

When in doubt, be ridiculous.

I have been known as a crank, faddist, madman. Evidently the reputation is well deserved. For wherever I go, I draw to myself cranks, faddists, and madmen.

I think that all creative people are a little bit nuts.

All artists are crackpots. And it's their finest feature.

and I laugh, I can still laugh, who can't laugh when the whole thing is so ridiculous that only the insane, the clowns, the half-wits, the cheaters, the whores, the horseplayers, the bankrobbers, the poets ... are interesting?

I feel the craziest people are sometimes the most intelligent.

If I begin writing a poem that means I'm intrigued in some way by whatever it's about and that if I'm not trying to find something new and pushing the envelope in the poem I can't expect my reader to be particularly excited about it either.

Be the first to not do what nobody has ever thought of not doing before.

I'm alienated from this world because its weird and I don't want to be a part of it. I want to be part of the people that are more imaginative and crazy.

I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain.

They think I'm crazy and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius.

Creative people are often considered crazy but I believe crazy can be a good thing.

The reason why new concepts in any branch of science are hard to grasp is always the same; contemporary scientists try to picture the new concept in terms of ideas which existed before.

I have created a life by stepping out of the box of people's limitations. I call it zigging when others are zagging.

Eccentric is a difficult word because it's come to mean crazy. Avant-garde would be better. Eccentric is not "centric" in terms of having a center. Because sometimes it's used in a derogatory context.

If I ever thought of directing again, I mean - I don't know, even the idea of directing a film is a strange one for me, because I feel kind of anti mathematics in a way in that sense. Anti - I don't like when things make sense, I prefer if they don't, so if I made a film, it wouldn't make any sense and no one would see it. So maybe I'll just make little films at home with my phone, never to be released.

... maybe that's all anyone who writes or paints or sculpts is doing anyway -- excusing themselves for refusing to live like other people or be like them.

I'm trying to figure out what I can do creatively. It's about trying to find new things and trying to figure out voices and borrowing from things and learning as much as possible so that I have an archive of things to borrow from.