Attention Quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

“[The] defining characteristics of good prose [are]: a preference for short sentences diversified by an occasionally very long one; a tone that is relaxed…

— F.W. Bateson

Many of today's verses are prose and bad prose.

— Eugenio Montale

Prose is a poor thing, a poor inadequate thing, compared with poetry which says so much more in shorter time.

— Vita Sackville-West

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

Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Good prose is the selection of the best words; poetry is the best words in the best order; and journalese is any old words…

— Alan Brewer

Prose is not necessarily good because it obeys the rules of syntax, but it is fairly certain to be bad if it ignores them.

— Wilson Follett

For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise…

— John Cheever

And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better in respect to prose.

— James Payn

To my mind, most prose poems are more prose than poetry. They don't possess most of the qualities of a poem.

— Pattiann Rogers

A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.

— Gustave Flaubert