Books Quote by William Empson

More often than not in poetry I find difficulty to be gratuitous and show-offy and camouflaging, experimental to a kind of insane degree -…

— Billy Collins

...the trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry...

— Billy Collins

It is important for poets and writers today to know their shortcomings, and be able to edit their own work as well as reject…

— Gulzar

I have thought many times since that if poets when they get discouraged would blow their brains out, they could write very much better…

— Mark Twain

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

— Nathalie Sarraute

I'm not a poet. So the writing process is a difficult one for me.

— Billy Squier

The poet can only write the poems; it takes the reader to complete the meaning.

— Nikki Giovanni

Paradoxically, the simpler poetry is, the more difficult it becomes for a critic to discuss intelligently. Trained to explicate, the critic often loses the…

— Dana Gioia

If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity…

— Randall Jarrell

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather…

— Lascelles Abercrombie

Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.

— Jean Cocteau

The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse, be that…

— Joseph Brodsky