One mark of good verse is surprise

The basic line in any good verse is cadenced... building it around the natural breath structures of speech.

— Kenneth Rexroth

I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.

— Victor Hugo

I ought to warn you that my verse is of no interest to people who can think.

— John Betjeman

And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better in respect to prose.

— James Payn

Being an art form, verse cannot be "free" in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principle.

— William Carlos Williams

Verse by verse, the Bible becomes more than theory. It becomes my firsthand experience.

— Mark Batterson

As for literature It gives no man a sinecure. And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There's…

— Ezra Pound

Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age,…

— John Milton

I think everything should be in verse. 'The New York Times' should be in verse.

— David Ives

I then carefully searched through the pages until I was able to find the verse that was crystal clear... It read: "Rejoice always."

— Mary C. Neal

No more pronouncements on lousy verse. No more hidden competition. No more struggling not to be a square.

— Louise Bogan

Writing fiction, for me, is a more indirect form of self-exploration than writing verse. When I'm working on a novel I'm moving characters around…

— Nick Laird

Let's be off before he gets his great horsey teeth into my poor lines of verse!

— Cornelia Funke

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's…

— Ambrose Bierce

Anyone may be an honorable man, and yet write verse badly.

— Moliere