Quotes by Frank O'Hara

About Frank O'Hara:

Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School—an informal group of artists, writers and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting and contemporary avant-garde art movements.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

After the first glass of vodka you can accept just about anything of life even your own mysteriousness you think it is nice that a box of matches is purple and brown and is called La Petite and comes from Sweden for they are words that you know and t...

Frank O'Hara

I am ashamed of my century, but I have to smile.

Frank O'Hara

I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!

Frank O'Hara

My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up.

Frank O'Hara

I am moved by the multitudes of your intelligence and sometimes, returning, I become the sea— in love with your speed, your heaviness and breath.

Frank O'Hara

Mothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to it's true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images and when you gr...

Frank O'Hara

...but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it...

Frank O'Hara

willow trees, willow trees they remind me of Desdemona I'm so damned literary

Frank O'Hara

I don't think I want to win anything I think I want to die unadorned.

Frank O'Hara

The artificial is always innocent.

Frank O'Hara

Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you.

Frank O'Hara

I have, for my own projected works and ideas, only the silliest and dewiest of hopes; no matter what, I am romantic enough or sentimental enough to wish to contribute something to life’s fabric, to the world’s beauty.... [S]imply to live does not...

Frank O'Hara

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab which is typical and not just of modern life

Frank O'Hara

When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leaf to turn away from the sun -- it loves it there. There's nothing so spiritual about being happy but you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last.

Frank O'Hara

I have been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful but I never actually collapsed oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Frank O'Hara

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

Frank O'Hara

And always embrace things, people earth sky stars, as I do, freely and with the appropriate sense of space.

Frank O'Hara

I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally life. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is...

Frank O'Hara

Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara. O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac

Frank O'Hara

My Heart I'm not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don't prefer one "strain" to another. I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as aliv...

Frank O'Hara

Author Bio

  • NameFrank O'Hara
  • DescriptionAmerican poet, art critic and writer
  • BornMarch 27, 1926
  • DiedJuly 25, 1966
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Author; Playwright
  • AwardsNational Book Award