Best 1314 quotes in «poet quotes» category

I'd rather be a great bad poet than a good bad poet.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.

If artists and poets are unhappy, it is after all because happiness does not interest them.

I fell in love with social work, and that was my undoing as a poet.

If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.

I express myself in sculpture since I am not a poet.

I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.

If he had had no education, maybe Basho could have been a much greater poet.

If the poet spun for half an hour daily, his poetry would gain in richness.

I find my data first in myself, not first in the poets. For if I did not find it in myself, I would not be able to find it in the poets.

If sexual intercourse, as the poets tell us, began in 1963, it was another decade and a half before the American political system began to take notice.

If you rank me with the lyric poets, my exalted head shall strike the stars. [Lat., Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseris, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.]

If you criticize a fine genius, the odds are that you are out of your reckoning, and, instead of the poet, are censuring your owncaricature of him.

I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while. Also, the title singer was kindly accorded me, even though I could barely carry a tune.

I have never considered myself a poet. I have no interest in poetic artistry.

I have written a raucous valentine to a poet's dream and agony.

I like it when someone gives me a new book of poetry by a poet I haven't read.

If you believe you're a poet, then you're saved.

If you're a poet and you're using rhyme, rhyme generates ideas. If you're a songwriter and you're using melody and words together, they bounce off each other in interesting ways that you couldn't get otherwise, because you do things unexpectedly.

I have never considered myself a poet. Therefore, I am not a rival of anyone, and I do not consider anybody my rival.

I have never yet known a poet who did not think himself super-excellent.

I hear poetry whenever I turn on the radio. Eminem is a better poet than just about everybody. He's better than Billy Collins; he's better than Richard Wilbur; he's better than me.

I knew that poets seemed to be miserable.

I know as well as thee that I am no poet born It is a trade, I never learnt nor indeed could learn If I make verses-'tis in spite Of nature and my stars I write.

I like to think that I'm a sort of poet for our times.

I'll be a poet, and you'll be poetry.

I'm about fifty years behind as far as my preferences go and I must say that the poets who excite me most are the Americans. There are very few contemporary English poets that I admire.

I love Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. I also love more cerebral poets like H.D. and Emily Dickinson. My parents subscribed to a monthly poetry periodical, and as a teenager I was introduced to Denise Levertov, who was an influence.

[I'm]a freak user of words, not a poet.

Imagination, which is the Eldorado of the poet and of the novel-writer, often proves the most pernicious gift to the individuals who compose the talkers instead of the writers in society.

I'm a poet born in the era of Andy Warhol and a generation that wanted to be famous.

I'm a poet who can whine in meter

I'm drawn to this range, that's for sure, but I suppose the thing that most appeals to me about Mandelstam is the sense you get from every poem that everything - the poet's very soul - is at stake.

I love John Ashbery. He's the - really the poet laureate of English language poetry, whether he's given that or not, he is to me.

Images are the heart of poetry ... You're not a poet without imagery.

I mainly wanted non-english writing poets, because I loved the idea that I was translating translations.

I'm not a poet. I wish I was a poet but I'm not. I'm a playwright. And so I have a different set of antecedents.

I'm inspired by the poets, so I'm always going to give in that direction, rather than in any other. It's the making of me... and also the downfall of me.

I'm tired of being this solemn poet of the masses, the enigma shrouded in a mystery.

I'm much more of a musician than a poet. I just feel much more confident about my musical abilities.

I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.

In America, the term younger poet is applied with chivalric liberality. It can be used to describe anyone not yet collecting a Social Security pension.

I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.

In living off all the reflecting light furnished by poets, the I which dreams the reverie reveals itself not as poet but as poetizing I.

In the end, time is the best ally of poets. It clarifies their works and makes them accessible to an ever widening circle of readers.

In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.

In the years 1910 and 1911 I had 51 innings with 10 not outs and an average of 19. This I consider a creditable record for a poet.

In truth, I'm still slightly embarrassed to say, I am a poet. I'd rather say, I make poems.

In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things