Best Poem Lines

1013 Poem quotes by 611 unique authors

I do believe that a poem needs to remind the reader of his or her own humanity, of what they are, of what they're capable… — Charles Simic
The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The short poem rejects… — Charles Simic
Have it compose a poem -- a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the… — Stanislaw Lem
A statute is written to entrap meaning, a poem to escape it. — Hilary Mantel
I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door. — Michael Ondaatje
Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest… — Stephen Spender
What philosophy worthy of the name has truly been able to avoid the link between poem and theorem? — Michel Serres
The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later. — Joan Miro
Like every other form of art, literature is no more and nothing less than a matter of life and death. The only question worth asking… — Mavis Gallant
To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night. — Grace Paley
The poem, the song, the picture, is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in… — Federico Garcia Lorca
Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes. — C.S. Lewis
I had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island in Lough Gill,… — William Butler Yeats
He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem. — Thomas Carlyle
One way poetry connects is across time. . . . Some echo of a writer's physical experience comes into us when we read her poem. — Jane Hirshfield
A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little… — Jane Hirshfield
I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a… — Jane Hirshfield
Translation is a kind of transubstantiation; one poem becomes another. You can choose your philosophy of translation just as you choose how to live: the… — Anne Michaels
My advice to the reader approaching a poem is to make the mind still and blank. Let the poem speak. This charged quiet mimics the… — Camille Paglia
Each poem leads you to the questions it makes sense to ask it. — Helen Vendler
A poem needs imaginative rhythms as well as imaginative transformation of content. — Helen Vendler
You don’t read or overhear the voice in the poem, you are the voice in the poem. — Helen Vendler
The pleasure we feel, reading a poem, is our assurance of its integrity. — Donald Hall
A poem should improve on the blank page. — Nicanor Parra
You know the worst thing is freedom. Freedom of any kind is the worst for creativity. You know, Dali spent two months in jail in… — Salvador Dali

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