David Antin Quotes

Children frequently sing meaningful phrases to themselves over and over again before they learn to make a distinction between singing and saying.
David Antin

Children, Saying, Before

When you grow up in a family of languages, you develop a kind of casual fluency, so that languages, though differently colored, all seem transparent to experience.
David Antin

Family, Experience, Though

A myth is the name of a terrible lie told by a smelly little brown person to a man in a white suit with a pair of binoculars.
David Antin

Lie, Person, Name

Disney made a fortune out of inventing the businessman's idea of the imaginary as the contradictory of the businessman's idea of the real.
David Antin

Real, Made, Idea

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.
David Antin

Song, Literary, Text

From this entertainment industry, may the gods of language protect us.
David Antin

May, Language, Industry

I am quite unsatisfied by the distinctions between the oral and literate.
David Antin

Between, Quite, Oral

I can manage a prose format as long as I keep closer to Laurence Sterne than to Henry James.
David Antin

Long, Keep, Closer

I didn't think about whether I was writing poems. I was thinking. And the more I was thinking, the more there was I didn't understand.
David Antin

Writing, Thinking, Understand

I had no idea where these kids at a small private college in the San Fernando Valley were coming from, why they were coming to hear me, or what they needed to know.
David Antin

Small, Why, Kids

I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do.
David Antin

Poetry, Hard, Thought

I have spoken to expert audiences occasionally, but then no audience is expert over the whole range of things I want to explore.
David Antin

Whole, Audience, Explore

I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember.
David Antin

Through, Remember, Enough

I reserve the right to tell shaggy dog stories or even common jokes as part of what I'm doing. I don't give a damn if half the audience walks out.
David Antin

Give, Tell, Dog

I tended to emphasize the secular, the casual, the colloquial, the vernacular against the sacred.
David Antin

Against, Sacred, Secular

I wanted to be an inventor, whatever I thought that meant then. I guess I was thinking of Edison or maybe James Watt. Or maybe even Newton.
David Antin

Thinking, Thought, Wanted

I was trying to find out what it was that everybody else understood without giving up my stubborn and hard-won lack of understanding.
David Antin

Giving, Trying, Find

I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker.
David Antin

Together, Working, Process

I'm aware of my audience in a way, and I do try to engage with them while I'm trying to go about my business of thinking. I believe they help me by providing a focus.
David Antin

Business, Focus, Help

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.
David Antin

Sure, Questions, Unless

I'm standing up thinking. Anybody who wants to listen is welcome. If not, I'm happy to see them go.
David Antin

Happy, Thinking, Listen

I've always had a strong feeling for the Statue of Liberty, because it became the statue of my personal liberty.
David Antin

Strong, Feeling, Liberty

It's hard being a hostage in somebody else's mouth - or a character in somebody else's novel.
David Antin

Character, Hard, Else

My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldn't understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer.
David Antin

Mother, Thought, Understand

My rejection of the idea of entertainment in its current form is based on the audience that comes with it.
David Antin

Rejection, Idea, Audience

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Poet

Born: February 1, 1932

Links

Find on Amazon: David Antin

Cite this Page: Citation

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