The specific excellence of verbal expression in poetry is…

There is only beauty / and it has only one perfect expression / poetry. All the rest is a lie /except for those who…

— Stephane Mallarme

Success consists in felicity of verbal expression, which every so often may result from a quick flash of inspiration but as a rule involves…

— Italo Calvino

If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous…

— Jean Sibelius

“If he lacks verbal expression of it, you may find his love profoundly in his works, deeds and creativity; so recognize rather than criticize.”

— T.F. Hodge

For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.

— Aristotle

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those…

— Aristotle

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.

— Jeremy Bentham

The reason modern poetry is difficult is so that the poet's wife cannot understand it.

— Wendy Cope

Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.

— Oscar Wilde

Poetry is the memory of language

— Jacques Roubaud

Poetry is the dark side of the moon,

— Charles Wright

As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of…

— Goldwin Smith

All poetry is misrepresentation.

— Jeremy Bentham

What I search for continuously in my art is adequate language, language I hope can stand beyond any particular occasion. What I'm finding is…

— Adrienne Rich

I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early…

— Umberto Eco