I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet. — John Quincy Adams Copy Share Image
The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn't exist. — Theophile Gautier Copy Share Image
Because we are all poets or babies in the middle of the night, struggling with being. — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Mediocrity in poets has never been tolerated by either men, or gods, or booksellers. — Horace Copy Share Image
“If you would understand a people, look at them through the eyes of the poet, the musician and the artist.” — Cynthia Pearl Maus Copy Share Image
And me happiest when I compose poems: Love, power, the huzza of battle are something, are much: yet a poem includes them… — Irving Layton Copy Share Image
I'm a huge fan of Toni Morrison. I just think she's so incredible. And also Nayyirah Waheed, who's a poet. — Amandla Stenberg Copy Share Image
The business of the poet, said Imlac, is to examine, not the individual, but the species. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb. — W. H. Auden Copy Share Image
I think there's a poet who wrote once a tragedy by Shakespeare, a symphony by Beethoven and a thunderstorm are based on… — Maximilian Schell Copy Share Image
“...who shall measure the heat and violence of a poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?” — Virginia Woolf Copy Share Image
There is, in all great poets, a wisdom of humanity which is superior to any talents they exercise. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If an artwork never gets any attention from anybody, then obviously it's got problems. If it gains attention from a very small… — Brian Boyd Copy Share Image
The French Revolution gave birth to no artists but only to a great journalist, Desmoulins, and to an under-the-counter writer, Sade. The… — Albert Camus Copy Share Image
Once an author finishes a poem, he becomes merely another reader. I may remember what I intended to put into a text,… — Dana Gioia Copy Share Image
You ask me where I get my ideas. That I cannot tell you with certainty. They come unsummoned, directly, indirectly - I… — Ludwig van Beethoven Copy Share Image
The real biographies of poets are like those of birds, almost identical - their data are in the way they sound. A… — Joseph Brodsky Copy Share Image
“Do you know what people do when they read poetry? They try to figure out what was going on in the poet’s… — Debora Geary Copy Share Image
I must say what I admire most is the person who masters an area of practical experience, and can teach me something.… — Sylvia Plath Copy Share Image
Ancient poets and sages have called the earth the mother of all things. They could hardly have chosen a more attractive name,… — Jonas Hallgrimsson Copy Share Image
If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET. — Countee Cullen Copy Share Image
“Destiny never defames herself but when she lets an excellent poet die.” — Thomas Nashe Copy Share Image
A born poet knows in his cradle that a poetic life is the only life worth living. — James Broughton Copy Share Image
“Limit not to only five, when the divine gifts the supreme sixth; the sense of dance” — Shah Asad Rizvi Copy Share Image
I'm all in favor of poets telling about the process as much as they can. And many do. — Pattiann Rogers Copy Share Image
I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem. — Yusef Komunyakaa Copy Share Image
Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
