The rhythmic pattern of the poem, which forces continuity of attention - incites a pleasurable compulsion to 'follow' - is either a tried metrical suasion-contrivance or a specially invented pattern of physical insistences, equally, if not more, binding in its… — Laura Riding Copy Share Image
The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect, not a pleasurable memory of itself, but an immediate, constant and even unpleasant insistence… — Laura Riding Copy Share Image
I believe that misconceptions about oneself that one does not correct where possible act as a bad magic. — Laura Riding Copy Share
To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth…but only a problem of art is solved… — Laura Riding Copy Share
Evil I had never found satisfactorily placeable as an integral element of the universal, or total, content of existence. Indeed, evil is evil just… — Laura Riding Copy Share
“Forgive me, giver, if I destroy the gift: it is so nearly what would please me I cannot but perfect it” — Laura Riding Copy Share
The new "ambiguity" means, in a way adjudged favorable to literary, poetic, intellectually and psychologically well-devised and praiseworthily executed linguistic performance, uncertainty of meaning,… — Laura Riding Copy Share
Conversation succeeds conversation, Until there's nothing left to talk about Except truth, the perennial monologue, And no talker to dispute it but itself. — Laura Riding Copy Share
She [Venison] had never travelled and so could invent all kinds of strange places without being limited, as travelled people are, by knowledge of… — Laura Riding Copy Share
rummaging in the storehouses of religious or literary history for myth-matter for ideational uses is of the nature of spiritual vulgarity. — Laura Riding Copy Share
The terms 'male' and 'female' must be understood as representing no mere primitive opposition of sex to sex; but as defining two worlds of… — Laura Riding Copy Share
The object of all religious activity is to mingle the human and the non-human, and the lower gods represent that which is cast back… — Laura Riding Copy Share
Every thought sounds like a footfall, Till a thought like a boot kicks down the wall. — Laura Riding Copy Share
Politics have always covered two distinct kinds of problems: problems of administrative routine, and those that may be called 'questions of the moment.' A… — Laura Riding Copy Share
To tell one comprehensive story of how it has happened that what is is, one which shall hold true, come what may, now-after -… — Laura Riding Copy Share
