Littles Quote by Elizabeth Bishop

Some good, some so-so, and lots plain bad: that's how a book of poems is made, my Friend.

— Martial

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

We talk so abstractly about poetry because all of us are usually bad poets.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on…

— W. H. Auden

I knew that poets seemed to be miserable.

— Billy Collins

Many poets, as you know, are not good readers.

— Robert Giroux

Most poets, like most people, try hard to be like someone they admire or they are possessed with an image of what they ought…

— James Broughton

I have never yet known a poet who did not think himself super-excellent.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

No poetry that I'm aware of, however bad or glorious, has ever left somebody a worse person than they were before they read it.

— Felix Dennis

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

Bad, quirky poetry might be better than some of the good stuff, because it really comes from the heart.

— Cheryl Hines

I didn't study other poets and react against them. I kind of found them later and realised I was different. Quite throwaway, I suppose,…

— Tim Key