Habit Quote by Anonymous

The poet is the one who breaks through our habits.

— Saint-John Perse

But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own…

— John Updike

Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a 'read,' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself.

— Joseph Brodsky

If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity…

— Randall Jarrell

I see woefully obscure poetry as simply a kind of verbal rudeness.

— Billy Collins

A poet is not a public figure. A poet should be read and not seen.

— Cecil Day-Lewis

Poetry is telling something to someone.

— Marie Howe

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

— John Drinkwater

If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The usual bad poem in somebody's Collected Works is a learned, mannered, valued habit, a habit a little more careful than, and little emptier…

— Randall Jarrell

I don't believe a good poet is very often deliberately obscure. A poet writes in a way necessary to him or her; the reader…

— Lydia Davis

Poetry is a hazardous occupation, very hazardous. There may be bad things in there inside you that maybe you can't handle.

— James Dickey