It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; they constitute his ideal audience and his better self.

Richard Wilbur

Congress Neighbors

Related Quotes

To this congress the poet speaks not of peculiar and personal things, but of what in himself is most common, most anonymous, most fundamental, most true of all men.

— Richard Wilbur

This is a Bart Simpson Congress: underachievers and proud of it.

— Richard Gephardt

On Capitol Hill Congress runs by an internal clock: Legislative days are not counted the way calendar days are, and the seasons are marked not by the earth's orbit but by whether Congress is in session or out.

— Richard Corrigan

That's what (Hill) died for, the right for people to protest. But I don't think a funeral is the right place or context in the way they are protesting. It's not something the family needs to hear, that we're glad your son's dead and that your minister is a whore.

— Richard Wilbur

PeopleProtestRight

What you hope for is that at some point of the pointless journey, indoors or out, and when you least expect it, right in the middle of your stride, like that, so neatly that you never feel a thing, the kind assassin Sleep will draw a bead and blow yo

— Richard Wilbur