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Howard Nemerov Quotes

Poet

Howard Nemerov was an American poet known for his unique style and profound insight into American culture. His poetry, characterized by humor, satire, and deep emotion, had a significant impact on American poetry.

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Famous Howard Nemerov Quotes

“The spirit world doesn't admit to communicating with me, so it's fairly even.”

World Spirit Literature Communicate Spirit World

Author:Howard Nemerov

“When you write it doesn't occur to you that somebody could think different from what you do.”

Thinking Writing Different Literature Think Different

Author:Howard Nemerov

“The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me.”

Jobs Literature Secret Wife My Wife Steady Secret To Success Good Wife

Author:Howard Nemerov

“I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier.”

Ifs Life Writing Funny Literature Easier Kindergarten Fidgeting

Author:Howard Nemerov

“I think there's one thing which distinguishes our art - we don't consider. We don't think. We write a little verse because it comes to us.”

Thinking Writing Littles Art Literature One Thing Verses

Author:Howard Nemerov

“I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.”

Want Happens Political Literature Poet Things Happen Accomplished Make Things Happen

Author:Howard Nemerov

“It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page.”

Way May Said Literature Pages Thirds Surface One Way Iceberg

Book:Figures of thought: speculations on the meaning of poetry & other essays

Source: Figures of thought: speculations on the meaning of poetry & other essays

“Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.”

Thinking Firsts Said Real Lasts Literature Lines Agree Fake Fake People Frost Icy Real Ones

Author:Howard Nemerov

“When modern writers gave up telling stories, they gave up the greatest thing we had.”

Stories Literature Modern Gave Up Telling Stories

Author:Howard Nemerov

“I do insist on making what I hope is sense so there's always a coherent narrative or argument that the reader can follow.”

Literature Reader Argument Narrative

Author:Howard Nemerov

“Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it.”

Literature Rhyme Rhyming

Author:Howard Nemerov

“When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats.”

Writing Literature Influence Starting Butlers Eliot Yeats Great Influence Starting To Write

Author:Howard Nemerov

“When Robert Frost was alive, I was known as the other new England poet, which is to be barely known at all.”

Literature Known Alive Poet England Frost New England Icy

Author:Howard Nemerov

“For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.”

Literature Class Novel Middle Serious Middle Class Application Puritan Retail Retail Business

Book:Journal of the Fictive Life

Source: Journal of the Fictive Life

“I think there was a revolution in poetry, associated chiefly with Eliot and Pound; but maybe it is of the nature of revolutions or of the nature of history that their innovations should later come to look trivial or indistinguishable from technical tricks.”

Thinking Should Looks Literature Revolution Innovation Tricks Pounds Corny Eliot

Author:Howard Nemerov

“The nice thing about the Bible is it doesn't give you too many facts. Two an a half lines and it tells you the whole story and that leaves you a great deal of freedom to elaborate on how it might have happened.”

Giving Two Whole Facts Stories Might Literature Lines Deals Half Nice Happened Nice Things

Author:Howard Nemerov

“A chronicle is very different from history proper.”

Different Literature Chronicles

Author:Howard Nemerov

“History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.”

World Way Literature Deals Impossible Illusion Our World Marvelous Generalities

Author:Howard Nemerov

“I liked the kid who wrote me that he had to do a term paper on a modern poet and he was doing me because, though they say you have to read poems twice, he found he could handle mine in one try.”

Trying Kids Found Literature Term Modern Mines Poet Paper Handle Doing Me Term Paper

Author:Howard Nemerov

“Occasionally a student writer comes up with something really beautiful and moving, and you won't know for years if it was an accident or the first burst of something wonderful.”

Ifs Knows Years Firsts Beautiful Moving Literature Wonderful Students Come Up Accidents Really Beautiful

Author:Howard Nemerov

“Mostly the thought and the verse come inseparably. In my poem Poetics, it's as close as I come to telling how I do it.”

Literature Poetic Verses

Author:Howard Nemerov

About the Author

Born: February 29, 1920
Died: July 5, 1991
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 51

Books & Sources

A Howard Nemerov ReaderRelated source material

Figures of thought: speculations on the meaning of poetry & other essaysRelated source material

The Collected Poems of Howard NemerovRelated source material

Journal of the Fictive LifeRelated source material

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