Failure Quote by Stanisław Lem

“It is always difficult for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend, but because their…

— Randall Jarell

“Good or bad, positive or negative, there is no comment more insulting to a poet than one displaying that you have not properly read…

— Jasper Sole

“...it was a misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely.”

— Jane Austen

“Remember, words are the enemy of poetry.”

— Russell Edson

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“I say I think my poems now are finer than anything I've ever done; I only hope that is the judgement of a ruined…

— Samuel R. Delany

“that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong…

— Jane Austen

“There was a time when I do not understand poetry.”

— Lailah Gifty Akita

“Contemporary poets got so obscure that poetry kind of fell out of favor,”

— Paul Ruffin

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

“Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present…

— Robert E. Howard

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur…

— David Lehman