Ballads Quote by John Selden

There are elements to the 19th century which just don't work for contemporary audiences.

— Cary Fukunaga

Some Western biographies are apologist, and do not portray the negative side at all.

— Deepak Chopra

The mind's passion is all for singling out. Obscurity has another tale to tell.

— Adrienne Rich

The times are squalid. They always were. It is a poet's duty to hold the line.

— Basil Bunting

Worse, the bodies of women, minorities, children, disenfranchised bodies (prisoners, so-called nut cases, etc...) and their truths don't "count" as either present and important…

— Lidia Yuknavitch

When I think about what really matters, it's not looking at art that has made the most difference or has been most shaping of…

— W. S. Di Piero

“The one thing is fiction in a novel and the other thing is reality. With fiction you don't make a fuss - you can…

— Anonymous

Great artists treasure their time with a bitter and snarling miserliness.

— Catherine Drinker Bowen

I cannot understand why the poets of our day wax indignant at the vulgarity of their age and complain of having come into the…

— Gabriele d'Annunzio

For my part, I wish, with Mr. Howells, that the literature of the past might be purged of all that is ugly and barbarous…

— Helen Keller

“In an age when designer labels and celebrity names are used to sell everything from cars to lipstick, when meaningless slogans and lyrics and…

— Siri Hustvedt

The slight, the facile and the merely self-glorifying tend to drop away over the centuries, and what we are left with is the bedrock:…

— Wendy Lesser