Becoming Quote by John Updike

I must say that, on the whole, I prefer fiction to poetry.

— Yuriy Tarnawsky

My own sense is that fiction is inching its way over to join poetry on the cultural margin. It's an area of passionate concern…

— Matthew Specktor

Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.

— H. L. Mencken

I don't believe that poetry is in danger because nobody wants to read it or appreciate it. There is a tremendous audience for it…

— Derek Walcott

Poetry is a kind of gasp, and there it is, a spark on the page. Fiction, on the other hand, is like swamp fire.

— Joy Kogawa

I think that there are fiction writers for whom that works well. I could never do it. I feel as if, by the time…

— Sharon Olds

I find in my own writing that only fiction - and rarely, a poem - fully tests me to the kind of limits of…

— John Updike

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others.

— Antonin Artaud

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come…

— Antonin Artaud

They say poets write mostly for themselves; if anyone else likes it, well and good, if not, it doesn't matter; certainly, not to me.

— Tom Glazer

More people write poetry than read it.

— George Carlin

Novelists have to love humanity to write anything worthwhile. Poets have to love themselves.

— Marita Golden