“I shop online because I don't like to try things on in front of an alien mirror.” TryingFrontsMirrorsAliensShopsOnline Author:Marina Warner
“If you want to learn about a culture, you look at what buildings the people lived in but you also want to know about their cosmos.” PeopleIfsKnowsWantLooksCultureBuildingCosmos Author:Marina Warner
“When I was young, I did actually model and was much photographed by famous photographers. But I was always a bookworm.” YoungModelsPhotographerBookworms Author:Marina Warner
“Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the voice, there's no visual distraction.” VoicePerfectRadioMediumsVisualsDistractionTransmission Author:Billy Collins
“I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue. If it does, I can feel a sense of momentum - the poem finds a reason for continuing.” IfsThinkingWantFeelsFirstsDoeI CanSometimesReasonLinesContinuingMomentum Author:Billy Collins
“I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a few drafts, I type up the poem on a Macintosh G3 and then send it out the door.” WritingMadeCompanyDoorsTypeBallsSevenBoundsNineNotebookMacintosh Author:Billy Collins
“I'm trying to write poems that involve beginning at a known place, and ending up at a slightly different place. I'm trying to take a little journey from one place to another, and it's usually from a realistic place, to a place in the imagination.” WritingTryingLittlesDifferentImaginationKnownJourneyRealisticDifferent Place Author:Billy Collins
“Listeners are kind of ambushed... if a poem just happens to be said when they're listening to the radio. The listener doesn't have time to deploy what I call their 'poetry deflector shields' that were installed in high school - there's little time to resist the poem.” IfsKindLittlesSaidHappensSchoolListeningHigh SchoolRadioListenersShieldsLittle Time Author:Billy Collins
“Often people, when they're confronted with a poem, it's like someone who keep saying 'what is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this?' And that dulls us to the other pleasures poetry offers.” PeoplePleasureOffersWhat Is The Meaning Author:Billy Collins
“The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A lot of it has to do with tone because tone is the key signature for the poem. The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme.” FirstsEndsUsedLinesKeysReaderBasesUsed To BeToneRhymeDnaSignaturesMeter Author:Billy Collins