Poetry Quotes · Page 139

Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance,

— Mahmoud Darwish

“their heart grew cold they let their wings down”

— Sappho

A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action.

— Edward Hirsch

“There is safety in numbness– there is solace in sleep.”

— Lang Leav

“…my sacred landscape is the foothills of the stars - I go there often to sleep ...”

— John Geddes

“...if human nature were not a mystery, we'd have no need of poets.”

— Salmon Rushdie

“Writing a poem doubles, triples the experience or connection that initiated it.”

— Frances Mayes

The religion of the heart is as intimate as a wish breathed to the night sky.

— Anonymous

“Though I knew how this failure would hurt you, I had to fold like a grey moth and let go. You could…

— Margaret Atwood

I am a great admirer of Robert Vavra and love his beautiful photographs and books. He is a wonderful artist, a poet.

— Leni Riefenstahl

What is important-what lasts-in another language is not what is said but what is written. For the essence of an age, we…

— Peter Brodie

I'm all over my poems, even if their relation to my everyday life is that of dream to reality.

— Matthea Harvey

I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from…

— Rita Dove

Poetry is priceless… a way of keeping yourself feeling rich and civilized even when you're quite poor.

— Marie Ponsot

Decide for yourself what kind of works you want to create... facts, essays, poems - do you want to speak or to…

— Ernst Haas

The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor, simply…

— W. H. Auden

Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror…

— William Butler Yeats

Now I know surely and forever, However much I have blotted our Waking love, its memory is still there. And I know…

— Kenneth Rexroth

I started as - well, I wanted to be Poet Laureate. And I wanted to be a naturalist. That's how I began.…

— Jane Goodall

“Where in the Bible are we told in one verse not to do a thing and in the next to do it?…

— Samuel Grant Oliphant

For me, prose is never a poem. Because with prose there are so very few tools to create the music. And one…

— Pattiann Rogers

“The novels, travel books and poems I read had a particular smell. The smell of cellars. An almost spicy smell, a mixture…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“It may happen once or perhaps several times during your lifetime, but you'll meet a 'soulmate'. The bond will be instantaneous. They'll…

— Alfa H

“Ask a man of mere science, what is the truth of a flower: he will pull it to pieces, show you its…

— George MacDonald

“Let’s fly away and start over in a new city.”

— Tene Edwards

“insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.”

— Sabrina Benaim

“If poetry is what you live for then do it write.”

— R.M. Engelhardt

Poetry is a vocation. It is not a career but a calling.

— Edward Hirsch

I guess haiku is an inspiration for me. Everyday, simple moments.

— Misha Collins

Poetry was the maiden I loved, but politics was the harridan I married.

— Joseph Howe

Don't you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?

— Anonymous

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

— Marianne Moore

There are very few great poets in the world.

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

The author of haiku should be absent, and only the haiku present.

— Anne Bancroft

“maybe this organ will be my country & everyone i love is safe here.”

— Jess Rizkallah

When I say 'God' it is poetry and not theology

— John Haynes Holmes

Without nothing, everything would be nothing.

— Dejan Stojanovic

“if we must both be right. we will lose each other.”

— Nayyirah Waheed

Every time I read Erin Belieu work I'm pierced in that wonderful way poetry can.

— Cheryl Strayed

Reading a poem aloud to an audience is gestural as much as precise.

— Douglas Dunn