Poetry: the best words in the best order.

“Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.”

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Good prose is the selection of the best words; poetry is the best words in the best order; and journalese is any old words…

— Alan Brewer

We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order - poetry; and to…

— John Drinkwater

“The best words in the best order...one always go the same shock of recognition and delight when someone's words swam up to meet a…

— Mary Stewart

“The best order of things, as I see it, is the one that includes me; to hell with the most perfect of worlds, if…

— Denis Diderot

“Poetry is best written with the growl and the gut. The heart and the head should be the realm to the reader.”

— Jeremy Young

“Poetry, at the best, does us a kind of violence that prose fiction rarely attempts or accomplishes.”

— Harold Bloom

Poetry, the best of it, is lunar and is concerned with the essential insanities. Journalism is solar (there are numerous newspapers named The Sun,…

— Tom Robbins

The best poems take long journeys. I like poetry best that journeys--while remaining in the human scale--to the other world, which may be a…

— Robert Bly

Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.

— Henry David Thoreau

I think poetry is the best thing I do. It's certainly the purest. I seem to switch gears without too much trouble. Non-fiction is…

— Erica Jong

I think poetry is best read to oneself.

— Rickie Lee Jones

Poetry at its best is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.

— Jim Harrison

There are only three things in the world, one is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is…

— Rupert Brooke

Poetry at its best can do you a lot of harm.

— Sylvia Plath