Affair Quote by Philip Larkin

Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they are.

— Philip Larkin

The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression…

— John Drinkwater

It is fatal to decide, intellectually, what good poetry is because you are then in honour bound to try to write it, instead of…

— Philip Larkin

I am not sure, once a poet has found out what has been written already, and how it was written - once, in short,…

— Philip Larkin

I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that…

— Billy Collins

Poetry is one of the original arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.

— Mary Oliver

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.

— Jeremy Bentham

The reason modern poetry is difficult is so that the poet's wife cannot understand it.

— Wendy Cope

Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.

— Oscar Wilde

Poetry is the memory of language

— Jacques Roubaud

Poetry is the dark side of the moon,

— Charles Wright

As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of…

— Goldwin Smith

All poetry is misrepresentation.

— Jeremy Bentham

What I search for continuously in my art is adequate language, language I hope can stand beyond any particular occasion. What I'm finding is…

— Adrienne Rich

I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early…

— Umberto Eco