I think all people would like to feel that they’re a necessary part of life. That they’re necessary in the world, and that life would be poorer if they weren’t in it. When you accomplish something, when you write good poetry, then I think you feel that the world would be slightly different if you weren’t in it. And that, I think, is part of what being needed is about.

—Kenneth Koch

life purpose meaning poetry value necessity

About Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch ( KOHK; February 27, 1925 – July 6, 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets including Frank O'Hara...

More quotations tagged with “necessity”

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

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Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

—Norman Mailer

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You can live without anything you weren't born with, and you can make it through on even half of that.

—Gloria Naylor

survival necessity birth

Awareness is not something that needs to be manufactured: when there is a gap, awareness enters into us. So awareness does not require a certain particular effort. Such an effort is unnecessary. Awareness is like a wind. If you open your doors and windows, it is bound to come in.

—Chögyam Trungpa in The Path is the Goal: A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation

awareness space necessity effort

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

—William Pitt

History

22 Jun 2013 Added