The poet's first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
The art of poetry consists in taking the poem through draft after draft, without losing its inspirational magic: he removes everything irrelevant… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence. Though… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
The difference between prose logic and poetic thought is simple. The logician uses words as a builder uses bricks, for the unemotional… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them. — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in.… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Poet, never chase the dream. Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
I don't really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn't create them out of nothing. I owe them to my… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either.” - Robert Graves” — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“Poets can't march in protest or do that sort of thing. I feel that's against the rules, and pointless. If mankind wants… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost's poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“Since the age of fifteen poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or performed any… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“Swinburne, by the way, when a very young man, had gone to Walter Savage Landor, then a very old man, and been… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
The poet's first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to bore himself-which,… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
She told me that all the girls in Annezin prayed every night for the war to end and for the English to go away… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock Never want for food or fire Always get their heart's desire Jingle pockets… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Before an attack, the platoon pools all its available cash and the survivors divide it up afterwards. Those who are killed can't complain, the… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“To resist the social pressure now put even on one's leisure time, requires a tougher upbringing and a more obstinate willfulness about going one's… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
The art of poetry consists in taking the poem through draft after draft, without losing its inspirational magic: he removes everything irrelevant or distracting,… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
Entrance and exit wounds aresilvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood. The one-armed… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love. — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
“Manticor in Arabia (The manticors of the montaines Mighte feed them on thy braines.--Skelton.) Thick and scented daisies spread Where with surface dull like… — Robert Graves Copy Share Image
