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Poetry Quotes by Robert Graves

39 Poetry quotes by Robert Graves

All Poetry quotes Robert Graves’s page

A child poet sees spring and fairyland, and he learns that a poem must never bore its writer or reader. The art of drafting removes anything that distracts, while mastering grammar comes before any daring bends. Poetry is called a bittersweet mix that can wake a dreamlike trance.

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Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.

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If there's no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money.

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Fact is not truth, but a poet who willfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

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To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.

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There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

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A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end.

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“There's no money in poetry. Then again, there's no poetry in money either.”

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“The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his.”

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Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me.…

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If there's no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money. In love as in sport, the amateur status must be…

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This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.

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Poet, never chase the dream. Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or…

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The poet's first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to…

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A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

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The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.

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I don't really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn't create them out of nothing. I owe them to my…

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“Since the age of fifteen poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or performed any…

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But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost's poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the…

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If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I…

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I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or…

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“Swinburne, by the way, when a very young man, had gone to Walter Savage Landor, then a very old man, and been…

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“Poets can't march in protest or do that sort of thing. I feel that's against the rules, and pointless. If mankind wants…

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“Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its…

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Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any…

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Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence. Though…

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The difference between prose logic and poetic thought is simple. The logician uses words as a builder uses bricks, for the unemotional…

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Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a…

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Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to…

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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

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“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either.” - Robert Graves”

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“There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either.”

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The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her…

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Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language…

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Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in.…

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Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.

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A banker warned the British poet Robert Graves that one could not grow rich writing poetry. He replied that if there was…

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No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as…

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The art of poetry consists in taking the poem through draft after draft, without losing its inspirational magic: he removes everything irrelevant…

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But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help…

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More by Robert Graves

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,…

She told me that all the girls in Annezin prayed every night for the war to end and for the English to go away…

“As quick as boiled asparagus!”

“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…

To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a…

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…

“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…

“The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his.”

The art of poetry consists in taking the poem through draft after draft, without losing its inspirational magic: he removes everything irrelevant or distracting,…

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…

What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.

“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…

As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as…

Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he…

Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence. Though philosophers like…