I thought originally when I was in school and I wanted to…

I knew that poets seemed to be miserable.

— Billy Collins

“Gamache watched the old poet. He knew what was looming behind the Mountain. What crushed all before it. The thing the Hermit most feared.…

— Louise Penny

Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.

— James Fenton

“You remember I had a strong inclination all my life to be a painter. Under different circumstances I would rather have been a painter…

— William Carlos Williams

At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even…

— Ama Ata Aidoo

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history,…

— Peter Ackroyd

I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I wanted to be a poem.

— Jaime Gil de Biedma

He wanted to be a poet,' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words…

— Nora Roberts

“I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I just wanted to be a poem.”

— Jaime Gil de Biedma

I really wanted to be a poet - until I realized that I really didn't have what it took to be a poet.

— Celeste Ng

I wanted to be a poet. I had a really romantic idea about what that would mean. My parents knew some poets, and I…

— Lena Dunham

“I wanted him to be a poet. I wanted him to adventure out into the world and learn its ways, not losing himself in…

— Josephine Humphreys

At college, I wanted to be a poet. I liked the extremely concentrated language, the atmosphere of otherworldliness.

— Walter Kirn

I wanted to be a poet. I wrote from ages 15 to 22, but I left it because I discovered, and fell in love with, cinema.

— Sebastian Lelio

I delivered dartboards to pubs. That wasn't when I knew I wanted to be a poet, but it was when I knew I did…

— Tim Key