Agate Cup

Famous quotes containing the words agate and/or cup:

    Your Englishman, confronted by something abnormal will always pretend that it isn’t there. If he can’t pretend that, he will look through the object, or round it, or above it or below it, or in any direction except into it. If, however, you force him to look into it, he will at once pretend that he sees the object not for what it is but for something that he would like it to be.
    —James Agate (1877–1947)

    In poorer lands
    No one touches the water of life.
    It has no taste
    And though it refreshes absolutely
    It is a cup that must also pass
    Until everybody
    Gets some advantage....
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)