Poetry Quotes · Page 440

“I charge you with a phrase from the gospel of John, Updike that is: Your only duty is to give the mundane…

— John Blase

“At the Sound of the Gunshot, Leave A Message That's what my friend spoke into his grim machine the winter he first…

— Mary Karr

“i could go if i wanted share the floorboards with someone in a place less haunted but i like it here and…

— Savannah Brown

“Sam, Sam, quite contrary, bought a budgie, wanted a canary. Sam, Sam, quite contrary, kissed Suzannah, meant to kiss Marry. Sam, Sam,…

— Chrissie Gittins

Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on…

— Samuel Johnson

“A day will come when men will discover an alphabet in the eyes of chalcedonies, in the markings of the moth, and…

— Alejo Carpentier

I'm searching for a deep connection, my heart is open, I need that sweet affection, I'm so true it's past your comprehension,…

— Cody Joseph

Out there people are working and arguing and laughing, living their beautiful, terrible lives, falling in love and having babies and being…

— Kim Addonizio

“When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all…

— Susanna Kearsley

“you told me once about how they used to build whole city states out of poems how everything you see here is…

— John Dorsey

“I understood that what matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color…

— Patti Smith

“My girl was mad and I loved her. Upon a night, she read my poetry; and kissing me madly she cried, ‘You…

— Roman Payne

The philosophic mind inclines always to an elaborate life--the life of Goethe or of Leonardo da Vinci; but the life of the…

— James Joyce

“I'm writing haiku. Not for English class but just because. It turns out swearing off poetry doesn't work the way swearing off…

— Sarah Dooley

I tend to write poetry that is rich in data of various sorts. The lyric poem isn't perfectly suited to accommodating such…

— Campbell McGrath

I cannot say I'm a poet. That's for someone when they take in consideration where they can bestow 'poet' on. I can't…

— Rodney Crowell

When I applied to Stanford, I applied for graduate work in the PhD program, not to the creative writing program, mostly because…

— Robert Hass

I don't spend time thinking about an aesthetic out of which I create or an ideal toward which my body of work…

— Albert Goldbarth

The judges who awarded the 1980 Commonwealth Poetry Prize to my first collection of poems, Crossing the Peninsula and Other Poems, cited…

— Shirley Geok-lin Lim

There’s only one subject for fiction or poetry or even a joke: how it is. In all the arts, the payoff is…

— Robert Stone

The thing is, the way we write is all jams and bits and pieces that get pieced together and sometimes things are…

— Danny Carey

“What a need we humans have for confession. To a priest, to a friend, to a psychoanalyst, to a relative, to an…

— Aidan Chambers

“Fat Charlie blew his nose. "I never knew I had a brother," he said. "I did," said Spider. "I always meant to…

— Neil Gaiman

In the 1970s, for example, I found myself learning to relish the poetry of Andrew Marvell and Sir Thomas Wyatt, and getting…

— Adam Kirsch

“Beauty is a hard thing. Beauty is a mean story. Beauty is slender girls who die young, fine-featured delicate creatures about whom…

— Dorothy Allison

“Since the age of fifteen poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or performed any…

— Robert Graves

I always hesitate to call myself a children's poet, and I always hesitate to call what I write for children poetry. Though…

— Mary Ann Hoberman

“We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the…

— Aristotle

“[John Clare's] father was a casual farm labourer, his family never more than a few days' wages from the poorhouse. Clare himself,…

— George Monbiot

“If you ever think of me, I hope it is not with regret but with gratitude. We were not a mistake. We…

— Marjory Qwen

“Belief In Self If you quit while pursuing your dreams, you will never know how close you've come to success. It might…

— Kamil Ali

For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem, - a thought so passionate and alive that like…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Although I was calm as a child, I had this restlessness about me–this need and hunger to create my own world. Poetry…

— Masiela Lusha

“The physical impact of taiko music, along with the sheer visual poetry of a choreographed ensemble presenting its music in perfect synchrony,…

— Gil Asakawa

I saw the Village as a place you could escape to, to express yourself. When I first went there, I wrote and…

— Richie Havens

We must cultivate and defend particularity, individuality, and irregularity-life. Human beings do not have a future in the collectivism of bureaucratic states…

— Octavio Paz

The mind wraps itself around a poem. It is almost sensual, particularly if you work on a computer. You can turn the…

— Marge Piercy

“Can there really be a form of verse where all that counts is the number of syllables in a line? No patterning…

— Stephen Fry

“You’re human. You can’t be a “motivational speaker” every damn day of your life. It’s okay to have dark days. Allow yourself…

— Melody Lee

“Whatever jasmines whispered to the breeze, brought sweets to the night, For there it dove, deep into the heart, The rush of…

— Jayita Bhattacharjee