Best Sonnet Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 6

“The idea that a student can write a sonnet or a novel without having a sound understanding about its history, and where it fits into literature as a whole, seems to me to be manifestly daft.”

Writing Ideas Whole Seems Poetry Literature Understanding Sound Novel Students Fit Sonnet Daft

Author:Nicholas Royle

“Every time I get happy the Nana-hex comes through. Birds turn into plumber's tools, a sonnet turns into a dirty joke, a wind turns into a tracheotomy, a boat turns into a corpse.”

Happiness Turns Wind Depression Jokes Bird Tools Boat Dirty Corpses Sonnet Plumber Dirty Jokes

Author:Anne Sexton

“The next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the power of quiet.”

Mind Persons Might Remember Faces Next Voice Design Quiet Hats Next Time Equations Sonnet Composing Deploying

Book:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Source: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“A sentimental aphorism is even more a surprise than a hard- boiled sonnet.”

Hard Surprise Aphorism Sentimental Sonnet

Author:Mason Cooley

“Sweetheart, darling, dearest, it was funny to think that these endearments, which used to sound exceedingly sentimental in movies and books, now held great importance, simple but true verbal affirmations of how they felt for each other. They were words only the heart could hear and understand, words that could impart entire pentameter sonnets in their few, short syllables.”

Thinking Heart Book Used Felt Sound Simple Importance True Love Love At First Sight Affirmation Sentimental Darling Sonnet Impart Syllables Sweetheart Endearment

Author:E. A. Bucchianeri

“I don't think I can really believe in doomsday; I could hardly believe in rewards and punishments, in heaven or hell. As I wrote down in one of my sonnets - I seem to be always plagiarizing, imitating myself or somebody else for that matter - I think I am quite unworthy of heaven or of hell, and even of immortality.”

Thinking Believe I Can Matter Seems Heaven Hell Rewards Punishment Immortality Sonnet Unworthy Imitating Doomsday Reward And Punishment Heaven Or Hell

Book:Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations

Source: Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations

“Being your slave what should I do but tend, Upon the hours, and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend; Nor services to do till you require.”

Love Should Heart Desire Hours Slave Should I Sonnet Heart Love Precious Time Stepchildren

Author:William Shakespeare

“I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks.”

White Flower Red Rose Cheeks Sonnet Red And White

Book:As You Like it

Source: As You Like it

“Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?.”

Ifs Thinking Wife Written Sonnet Laura

Author:Lord Byron

“To write poetry is to be very alone, but you always have the company of your influences. But you also have the company of the form itself, which has a kind of consciousness. I mean, the sonnet will simply tell you, that's too many syllables or that's too many lines or that's the wrong place. So, instead of being alone, you're in dialogue with the form.”

Writing Kind Mean Form Lines Consciousness Company Influence Dialogue Poetry Is Sonnet Syllables

Author:Billy Collins

“The short story is not as restrictive as the sonnet, but, of all the literary forms, it is possibly the most single-minded. ...at the end there has to be the literary equivalent of the magician's puff of smoke, an outcome that is both startling and anticipated.”

Ends Stories Form Smoke Outcomes Short Story Magician Sonnet Puff

Author:Louis Menand

“A sermon is a form that yields a certain kind of meaning in the same way that, say, a sonnet is a form that deals with a certain kind of meaning that has to do with putting things in relation to each other, allowing for the fact of complexity reversal, such things. Sermons are, at their best, excursions into difficulty that are addressed to people who come there in order to hear that.”

People Way Kind Facts Form Certain Order Deals Difficulty Relation Complexity Yield Allowing Sermons Sonnet Reversal Excursions

Author:Marilynne Robinson

“If you want to be considered a poet, you will have to show mastery of the petrarchan sonnet form or the sestina. Your musical efforts must begin with well-formed fugues. There is no substitute for craft... Art begins with craft, and there is no art until craft has been mastered.”

Ifs Want Wells Has Beens Art Shows Form Effort Poet Art Is Musical Crafts Substitutes Mastery Sonnet Fugue

Book:But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop, and Other Writings

Source: But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop, and Other Writings

“I prefer formal techniques, and use sonnets and rhyme, any manner of scheme to give a shape and order-of feeling as well as argument-to a poem. But all my life, I've also been a person who's made his bed in the morning and picks up the bath mat. That's what I mean by temperament. Whether genetic or acquired, I have a disposition to arrangements. One is born with this, as if with blue eyes or a weak heart. Do you think Allen Ginsberg ever put the cap back on his toothpaste?”

“I prefer assonance and internal rhyme to end rhyme. I mean, the sonnet already looks like a box. Best not to get too boxed in, though.”

Looks Mean Ends Boxes Internals Rhyme Sonnet Assonance

Author:Anna Journey

“I was born in the era of the novel. I've written many, as well as collections of poetry, and essays for mouthing off. I've written to inches, word-counts, page-counts, even the sonnet and the screenplay (which I call a plot poem). I write narrative. That's it. I just want to tell it.”

Want Writing Wells Born Novel Written Pages Eras Narrative Collections Plot Inches Essays Sonnet Screenplays

Author:Julianna Baggott

“You can't beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.”

Writing Married Beats Being Married Sonnet

Author:Bonnie Jo Campbell

“Characters to me are like sonnets, they have limits that you obey which allow a force to enter in, an invention that makes the novel possible. Change the limits and the force leaves. The novel becomes impossible.”

Character Force Novel Impossible Limits Invention Sonnet Possible Change

Author:Alexander Chee

“I came from a white middle class neighborhood. Was I expected to go back there and teach the woman next door about Renaissance sonnets? The embarrassing truth of the matter was that I was being chosen because Yale University had some peculiar idea about what my skin color or ethnicity signified.”

“Often you've read another poem that you think is so beautiful that you'd like to make something like that. And so you try to make a sonnet that works in a certain kind of way, or you try to make something that's songlike, or you create a refrain, or you love the way a poem works in two line stanzas and you try to do that.”

Thinking Way Trying Kind Two Beautiful Certain Lines Sonnet Refrain

Author:Edward Hirsch

“So, some of the most difficult formal poems that I've written, say one sentence sonnets, I've been able to do those fairly quickly whereas some of the clearest, simplest lyrics that I've written have taken me the longest to get to the clarity of feeling that you're looking for.”

Feelings Able Difficult Taken Written Sentences Clarity Formal Simplest Sonnet One Sentence

Author:Edward Hirsch

“I strive for what you do find in Shakespeare's work - that there is a definite humanity and a definite character behind the writing in the sonnets, and it's very real because it's so deeply personal. I try to aspire to that in what I do.”

Writing Trying Real Character Humanity Behinds Strive Aspire Definite Sonnet

Author:Rufus Wainwright

“Each genre exerts a considerable spell, as a kind of "form" to be filled, as a Shakespearean sonnet is filled.”

Kind Form Filled Genre Spells Sonnet

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Shakespeare, of course, makes us ever aware of transience, not only in the sonnets, but also powerfully in his plays - spectacles for a brief period of time and then gone, as when Prospero describes the pageant fading, leaving "not a rack behind."”

Play Courses Behinds Gone Periods Leaving Sonnet Fading Racks Spectacles Pageant Transience Prospero

Author:Martha Ronk

“Milton was the first person who really experimented with putting politics into sonnets.”

Firsts Persons Sonnet First Person Milton

Author:Robert Hass

“I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.”

Life Hate Three Water Bed I Hate Get Up Dull Sonnet Neurosis Mute Phobia Slick

Book:Tallulah: My Autobiography

Source: Tallulah: My Autobiography

“I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.”

Should Reading Mines Should I Sonnet

Author:Spike Milligan

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

Source: Plays of William Shakespeare

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Men Inspirational Self Character Lying Night Honesty Honor Integrity Self Improvement Ethics Genuine Authenticity Reputation Being True Being Honest Self Respect Self Motivation Graduation Day Know Yourself Self Interest Sonnet Playwright Straightforward Day And Night Be True To Yourself True To Yourself Authentic Self Know Thyself Good Character Absolute Truth Great Character True Meaning Truth And Honesty Honesty Integrity Truth Honesty Horatio Hamlet And Ophelia Ophelia Integrity And Character Honest And Integrity Integrity Character Good Reputation Hamlet 2 Honor And Integrity Hamlet Ophelia Important Hamlet Man Of Integrity Polonius Being Authentic Mortality In Hamlet Finding Out The Truth Morality In Hamlet Personal Motivation Trueness Hamlet Significant Morals And Integrity Honor And Respect Denmark In Hamlet Day Night Being Trusted False Appearances Don't Lie To Me Appropriate Behavior Describe Yourself

Author:William Shakespeare

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

Author:William Shakespeare

“A story is a story is a story. The only difference is in the techniques you bring to bear. There are always limitations on what you can and can't do. But I enjoy that. Just like when you write a sonnet or haiku, there are rules you have to abide by. And to me, playing within the rules is the fun part. It keeps the brain fresh.”

Writing Stories Fun Enjoy Differences Brain Bears Technique Limitation Sonnet Haiku

Author:J. Michael Straczynski

“The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.”

Firsts Inspiration Funny Law Lines Lawyer Wit Classic Anarchy Sonnet Law Students Funny Lawyer Best Lawyer Noble Profession Legal Ethics

Author:William Shakespeare

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

Love Soul Poetry Certain Dark Secret Love You Shadow Pregnancy Sonnet I Hate You Dark Things

Author:Pablo Neruda

“Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Men Life Stars Fate Masters Faults Dear Sonnet Julius Cassius Brutus Modern English

Author:William Shakespeare

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

“Want to talk about Shakespeare's sonnets?" asked Orphu of Io. Are you shitting me?" The moravecs loved the ancient human colloquial phrases, the more scatological the better. Yes," said Orphu. "I am most definitely shitting you, my friend.”

Want Humans Said My Friends Ancient Phrases Sonnet Ios Shakespeare's Sonnets

Author:Dan Simmons

“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit”

Writing Form Given Obligation Sonnet

Author:Madeleine L'Engle

“I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.”

Want Writing I Can Jobs Order Expression Satisfied Mediums Urges Translations Sonnet Colossal

Book:The Journals of Sylvia Plath

Source: The Journals of Sylvia Plath

“She wrote poetry constantly; that was her "work". She was a slow bleeder and she slaved over it for long, exhausting hours, and many a middle of a night I could hear her creaking around the dead house with a pen in one hand, a clipboard and a flashlight in the other, refining her poems, jotting down the lines of a conceit. Writing never came easy for her; it gave her calluses. She never courted the muses, she wrestled them, mauled them all over the house and came up, after weeks of peripatetic labor, with a slim Spencerian sonnet, fourteen lines of imagistic jabberwocky.”

Writing Long Hands Night House Easy Hours Lines Week Middle Labor Over It Pens Muse Sonnet Conceit Exhausting Fourteen Slim Refining Flashlights Calluses Clipboards

Author:Millard Kaufman

“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”

Life Has Beens Art Expression Sonnet Self Expression

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

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

“When Vanity kissed Vanity, a hundred happy Junes ago, he pondered o'er her breathlessly, and, that all men might ever know, he rhymed her eyes with life and death: "Thru Time I'll save my love!" he said. . . yet Beauty vanished with his breath, and, with her lovers, she was dead. . . -Ever his wit and not her eyes, ever his art and not her hair: "Who'd learn a trick in rhyme, be wise and pause before his sonnet there". . . So all my words, however true, might sing you to a thousandth June, and no one ever know that you were Beauty for an afternoon.”

Knows Men Art Said Might Eye Wise Hair Lovers Hundred Breaths Wit Tricks Vanity Life And Death Afternoon Her Eyes Pauses Rhyme June Sonnet Being Wise

Book:This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

“All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”

“I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy. "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”

Ifs May Has Beens Said Used Strong Fine Healthy Affection Convinced Inclination Sonnet Stout Darcy Healthy Love

Book:Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”

Writing Mean Said Form Given Our Lives Compare Strict Up To You Sonnet

Book:The Wrinkle in Time Quintet

Source: The Wrinkle in Time Quintet

“No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath... We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?" -Donald Miller,Through Painted Deserts”

Source: Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”

Thinking May Art Secret Share Angel Immortality Refuge Sonnet Prophetic Pigment

Book:Lolita

Source: Lolita

“The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.”

Source: Oscar Wilde The Dover Reader

Sonnet Quotes

Related topics

Sonnet Quotes