Best poet & would-be Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“"You know that it is quite preposterous of you to chase rainbows," said the sane person to the poet. "Yet it would be rather beautiful if I did one day manage to catch one," mused the poet.”

Ifs Knows Persons Said Would Be Beautiful Science Poet One Day Manage Sane Rainbow

Book:Little Stories

Source: Little Stories

“I think it was rather an advantage not having any living poets in England or America in whom one took any particular interest. I don't know what it would be like but I think it would be a rather troublesome distraction to have such a lot of dominating presences, as you call them, about. Fortunately we weren't bothered by each other.”

Thinking Knows Would Be America Poetry Interest Particular Poet Advantage England Distraction Bothered Troublesome Dominating

Author:T. S. Eliot

“Did men but know that there was a fixed limit to their woes, they would be able, in some measure, to defy the religious fictions and menaces of the poets; but now, since we must fear eternal punishment at death, there is no mode, no means, of resisting them.”

Knows Men Mean Would Be Able Religious Fiction Poet Limits Eternal Punishment Fixed Woe Resisting Menace

Book:Lucretius On the Nature of Things

Source: Lucretius On the Nature of Things

“If poetry were nothing but texture, [Dylan] Thomas would be as good as any poet alive. The what of his poems is hardly essential to their success, and the best and most brilliantly written pieces usually say less than the worst.”

Ifs Would Be Pieces Alive Written Worst Poet Essentials Dylan Texture

Author:Randall Jarrell

“For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels-at the very least with the tongues of angels-they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes.”

Source: Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals

“Virtue is as little to be acquired by learning as genius; nay, the idea is barren, and is only to be employed as an instrument, in the same way as genius in respect to art. It would be as foolish to expect that our moral and ethical systems would turn out virtuous, noble, and holy beings, as that our aesthetic systems would produce poets, painters, and musicians.”

Way Littles Art Ideas Would Be Turns Moral Virtue Produce Poet Genius Holy Musician Instruments Noble Foolish Painter Ethical Aesthetic Virtuous Employed Barren

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“The fact is that I have lived with the belief that power, any kind of power, was the one thing forbidden to poets. ... Power requires that the inner person never be unmasked. No, we poets have to go naked. And since this is so, it is better that we stay private people; a naked public person would be rather ridiculous, what?”

People Kind Persons Facts Would Be Belief One Thing Poet Ridiculous Naked Forbidden

Book:Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing: A Novel

Source: Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing: A Novel

“I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle, seems strained to the breaking point. The poem will not be denied; to refuse to write it would be a greater torture. It tears its way out of the brain, splintering and breaking its passage, and leaves that organ in the state of a jelly-fish when the task is done.”

Way Writing States Done Seems Would Be Poetry Realizing Brain Greater Tears Poet Creating Tasks Fishes Refuse Torture Muscles Nerves Passages Denied Organs Agony Jelly Point Break

Author:Amy Lowell

“If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.”

Ifs World Would Be Poet

Book:Conversations with Nikki Giovanni

Source: Conversations with Nikki Giovanni

“Auden, who asked two things of an imagined world-that it be somehow like ours and somehow unlike-would be Ben Marcus's ideal reader, yet even without the poet's dire program, I am altogether taken by this hilarious and sexy alternative universe. Just imagine! it is all done with words instead of mirrors, so much more reliable and so much more heartbreaking. Thus Prospero enthralls his crew.”

World Two Done Would Be Universe Taken Imagine Poet Reader Ideals Program Mirrors Sexy Alternatives Two Things Crew Heartbreaking Auden Prospero

Author:Richard Howard

“There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate--not to the artist but to the public.... Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie.”

Source: The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays

“The saying, "The Magyar is much too lazy to be bored," is worth thinking about. Only the most subtle and active animals are capable of boredom.--A theme for a great poet would be God's boredom on the seventh day of creation.”

Thinking Would Be Animal Creation Poet Capable Active Bored Boredom Theme Lazy Subtle Maxims Great Poet

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“Like all twenty-one-year-old poets, I thought I would be dead by thirty, and Sylvia Plath had not set a helpful example. For a while there, you were made to feel that, if a poet and female, you could not really be serious about it unless you'd made at least one suicide attempt. So I felt I was running out of time.”

Ifs Feels Years Made Would Be Running Felt Example Serious Poet Female Twenties Suicide Thirty Helpful Twenty One Running Out Of Time Plath

Author:Margaret Atwood

“My first advice would be to read, read, read, which sounds interesting coming in a digital age, but it's so much easier to listen to a poem than it is to sit down and actually read it and to hear it in your head and that is something that every poet or aspiring poet needs to be able to do, I think to hear it in their head.”

Thinking Needs Firsts Would Be Age Able Sound Interesting Advice Poet Easier Down And Digital Digital Age

Author:Rita Dove

“If you would be a poet, write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance for bullshit.”

Ifs Writing Believe Would Be Space Poet Lows Tolerance Newspapers Supreme Editors Bullshit Reporters Outer Space Disclosure Filing

Book:Poetry as Insurgent Art

Source: Poetry as Insurgent Art

“I thought that perhaps the most creative mix for a society would be nine parts solid worker from institutions like MIT to one part poet from Marrakech, but in spite of the fact that I myself had been trained to be one of the solid workers, which meant that all of my sympathies lay with that group, I would not surrender the poet. The problem was to find him.”

Facts Problem Would Be Creative Groups Poet Institutions Lays Workers Surrender Nine Spite My Sympathy Mit Marrakech

Author:James A. Michener

“I look at the great poets of the Soviet Union, like Anna Akhmatova, who endured far worse then anything we've seen or hopefully that we will ever see. If they could keep writing and keep a voice alive, keep people hopeful through their poetry, then I would be ashamed to stop and to give in. It would be really self-indulgent, unacceptable, and inexcusable to walk away from it.”

People Ifs Giving Writing Looks Self Would Be Voice Walks Alive Poet Unions Hopefully Ashamed Hopeful Soviet Soviet Union Anna Great Poet Self Indulgent

Author:Sara Paretsky

“I want people to see the beauty of that condition through the eyes of the characters. In doing that, they can allow people who have the condition to be more accepting of it, and to be open about it. That would be a contribution to the people who have it, and considering that 38% of the Pulitzer Prize winning poets are Bipolar, to think about how much these individuals have contributed to the human spirit.”

People Thinking Want Humans Character Would Be Eye Spirit Winning Individual Accepting Conditions Poet Contribution Prize Considering Human Spirit Bipolar Through The Eyes Prize Winning

Author:Paul Dalio

“I know that in a poem, even when the speaker is speaking from the poet's experience, there's always something that's borrowed, some authority that sits outside of the poet that the poem has claimed. There's a dramatic pitch that makes the speaker capable of saying something more courageous or stranger or simply other than what the poet would be able to say.”

Knows Would Be Able Poet Authority Capable Stranger Dramatic Courageous Speakers Borrowed

Author:Tracy K. Smith

“A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.”

Would Be Subjects Creation Poet Boredom Great Day Great Poet

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

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