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Paul Engle

Paul Engle Quotes

Poet

Paul Engle was an American poet, born on October 12, 1908, and passed away on March 22, 1991. He was one of the significant figures in American poetry during the 20th century, known for his unique poetic style and extensive creative achievements.

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All Writing Horse Poet Firsts Language Hands Hills Ifs Iowa July

Famous Paul Engle Quotes

“I grew up in the prolonged survival of the great age of the horse, with harness and saddle and sleigh bells and horse pictures, not as antiques but the facts of our lives.”

Facts Age Our Lives Grew Grew Up Survival Horse Bells Harness Antiques Saddles Sleighs

Author:Paul Engle

“You come to know the aches and vanities and tastes and intrigues of an entire neighborhood at a drug store.”

Knows Taste Drug Stores Vanity Neighborhood Intrigue Ache

Author:Paul Engle

“Writing is like this -- you dredge for the poem's meaning the way police dredge for a body. They think it is down there under the black water, they work the grappling hooks back and forth.”

Thinking Way Writing Body Black Water Police Hook Back And Forth Grappling

Author:Paul Engle

“Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.”

Writing Rewriting

Author:Paul Engle

“Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.”

Ideas Together Poetry Language Emotion Poet Ordinary Tough Skins Raised Poetry Is Delicate Reading Poetry Poetry By Famous Poets Poetry By Poets Poetry Reading Tough Skin

Author:Paul Engle

“But maybe it's up the hills or under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it's never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is only part of the missing, and writing is the way the poet finds out what it is he found.”

Way Writing Found Missing College Poet Hills

Author:Paul Engle

“Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power.”

Poetry Language Poet Ordinary Raised Poetry Is Delicate Reading Poetry Power Of Language Language And Power Poetry By Poets Poetry Reading Tough Skin

Author:Paul Engle

“Corncobs are the greatest fire-making tinder.”

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

“Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.”

Grief Written Poet Pages Delight Rage Abstract Verses

Book:A Woman Unashamed: And Other Poems

Source: A Woman Unashamed: And Other Poems

“The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.”

Hands Mother Memories Bed Christmas Old Fashioned Christmas Eve

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

“All poetry is an ordered voice, one which tries to tell you about a vision in the un-visionary language of farm, city, and love.”

Love Trying Age Language Voice Cities Vision And Love Poetry Is Farms Visionaries

Author:Paul Engle

“Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.”

House Fronts Horse Posts Automobile

Author:Paul Engle

“To eat in the same room where food is cooked - that is the way to thank the Lord for His abundance.”

Way Rooms Lord Abundance

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

“When your first marriage goes into tragedy, you become very battle-scarred... I even thought of suicide. Luckily, I had known some happy marriages.”

Firsts Known Battle Tragedy Suicide Happy Marriage

Author:Paul Engle

“A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that's where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.”

Firsts Children Christ Happened Air Events Horse Originals Smell Cattle Barns Christ Child

Book:Prairie Christmas

Source: Prairie Christmas

“Contrary to slanderous Eastern opinion, much of Iowa is not flat, but rolling hills country with a lot of timber, a handsome and imaginative landscape, crowded with constant small changes of scene and full of little creeks winding with pools where shiners, crappies and catfish hover.”

Littles Country Opinion Scene Constant Contrary Hills Landscape Flats Pool Rolling Eastern Handsome Imaginative Crowded Iowa Creeks Timber Small Changes Catfish Rolling Hills

Author:Paul Engle

“Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches.”

Should Children Sound Church Mines Bells Rapids Iowa Cedars Church Bells Sleighs

Book:Prairie Christmas

Source: Prairie Christmas

“For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.”

Firsts Philosophy Language My Own Degrees Summer Sight Germany Vacation Translate Dictionary Oxford Summer Vacation German Philosophy

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

“Has the painter not always gone to an art school, or at least to an established master, for instruction? And the composer, the sculptor, the architect? Then why not the writer? Good poets, like good hybrid corn, are both born and made.”

Art Made School Born Gone Poet Masters Painter Why Not Architect Instruction Composer Corn Sculptors Hybrid Art School

Author:Paul Engle

“I can still remember the feel in my hand of that most wonderful American coin ever minted, a nickel with a buffalo on one side and the head of an Indian on the other. That nickel was a daily proof of our country's past. Bring it back!”

Feels Stills I Can Country Hands Past Remember Sides Wonderful Proof Our Country Indian Coins Buffalo Nickels

Author:Paul Engle

“I have lectured at Town Hall N.Y., The Library of Congress, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Wellesley, Columbia, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana State University, Colorado, Stanford, and scores of other places.”

States Towns Library University Congress Score Halls Harvard Michigan Louisiana Indiana Yale Columbia Colorado Illinois Stanford

Author:Paul Engle

“I have published in 'The New Yorker,' 'Holiday,' 'Life,' 'Mademoiselle,' 'American Heritage,' 'Horizon,' 'The Ladies Home Journal,' 'The Kenyon Review,' 'The Sewanee Review,' 'Poetry,' 'Botteghe Oscure,' the 'Atlantic Monthly,' 'Harper's.'”

Home Holiday Horizon Reviews Heritage Journal New Yorkers Harper

Author:Paul Engle

“Our small ears never had such a workout as on the Fourth of July, hearing not only our own bursting crackers but also those of our friends, and often the boom of homemade cannon shot off by daring boys of 16 years, ready to lose a hand if it blew up.”

Ifs Years Hands Loses Boys Ready Shots Ears Hearing Daring Fourth Workout July Bursting Cannons Crackers Homemade

Author:Paul Engle

“Soldiers of the American Revolution fought that 18th century war with heavy muskets. In the early 20th century, we kids fought it every Fourth of July not only with exploding powder and shimmering flares, but with all of our senses.”

War Kids Century Revolution Soldier Heavy Senses Fourth 20th Century July American Revolution Powder Exploding 18th Century Flare

Author:Paul Engle

“There must be an alternative between Hollywood and New York, between those two places psychically as well as geographically. The University of Iowa tries to offer such a community, congenial to the young writer, with his uneasiness about writing as an honorable career, or with his excess of ego about calling himself a writer.”

Writing Trying Wells Two Young Community Careers New York Calling Offers Ego Hollywood University Alternatives Excess Honorable Iowa Young Writers Uneasiness

Author:Paul Engle

“Touch was important. The evening of the Third of July we would go around the neighborhood and look at the fireworks others had bought, taking them out of the brown paper sack and handling them cautiously as if they were precious stones. There was envy when we saw sacks with more in them than we had.”

Ifs Looks Important Saws Paper Stones Thirds Envy Evening Brown Neighborhood July Fireworks Precious Stones

Author:Paul Engle

“Human life is too difficult for people.”

People Humans Life Is Difficult Human Life

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

“I had been warned about Jews by my gentile friends - they did terrible things with knives to boys.”

Boys Terrible Jew Knives Terrible Things Gentiles

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

“I wanted to write poetry almost a little more than I wanted to eat.”

Writing Littles Wanted

Author:Paul Engle

“Without vision you don't see, and without practicality the bills don't get paid.”

Vision Paid Bills Practicality

Author:Paul Engle

“All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm - hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut.”

Made Black Special Bread Farms Cake Nuts Halfway Dutch Dough Walnuts

Book:Prairie Christmas

Source: Prairie Christmas

“I knew about holiness, never having missed a Sunday-school class since I started at four years. But if Jews were also religious, how could our neighbor with the grease-grimy shirt use the word 'damn' about them?”

Ifs Years Use School Religious Class Four Jew Neighbor Damn Shirts Holiness Sunday Four Years Grease Sunday School

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

“The corncob was the central object of my life. My father was a horse handler, first trotting and pacing horses, then coach horses, then work horses, finally saddle horses. I grew up around, on, and under horses, fed them, shoveled their manure, emptied the mangers of corncobs.”

Firsts Father Objects Grew Grew Up Horse Coaches Feds Manure Saddles Pacing Trotting

Author:Paul Engle

“The years rolled their brutal course down the hill of time. Still poor, my clothes still smelling of the horse barn, still writing those doubtful poems where too much emotion clashed with too many words.”

Writing Years Stills Courses Poor Emotion Too Much Clothes Horse Hills Brutal Doubtful Barns

Book:A Lucky American Childhood

Source: A Lucky American Childhood

About the Author

Born: October 12, 1908
Died: March 22, 1991
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 34

Related Topics

Writing Horse Poet Firsts Language Hands Hills Ifs Iowa July

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

A Lucky American ChildhoodRelated source material

Prairie ChristmasRelated source material

A Woman Unashamed: And Other PoemsRelated source material

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