Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.

Modern poets mix too much water with their ink. [Ger., Neuere Poeten thun viel Wasser in die Tinte.]

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I'm a bit like a sponge. When I'm not writing I absorb life like water. When I write I squeeze the sponge a little…

— Georges Simenon

Water is the ink that writes the poetry of life.

— Alexandra Cousteau

I can't listen to rap music; it's not my thing. They say that they're the modern poets: of course they are, but it's not…

— Bradley Walsh

Modern poets are bells of lead. They should tinkle melodiously but usually they just klunk.

— Lord Dunsany

Certainly the modern poets I cherish most are disturbing spirits; they do not come to coo.

— Stanley Kunitz

Well, it's a badge of honour for any self-respecting poet to be criticized by Auberon Waugh. But in a lot of ways my poems…

— Andrew Motion

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

— Robert Frost

Old empires always appeal to modern poets more than new ones.

— Dana Gioia

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either…

— Andrew Motion

“Modern poets like Frost still want to make 'deep' statements; but they are also more sceptical of such high-sounding generalities than many of their…

— Terry Eagleton

“the activity of modern poets stands under the decree of necessity, as though they were building a pyramid, the monstruos residence of a dead…

— Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Subtract from many modern poets all that may be found in Shakespeare, and trash will remain.

— Charles Caleb Colton

“The heart contains passion but the imagination alone contains poetry,’ says Charles Baudelaire. This too was the lesson that Theophile Gautier, most subtle of…

— Oscar Wilde

I don't know if younger poets read a lot of, you know, the poets - the established poets. There was a lot of pretty…

— Robert Adamson