44 Billy Collins Quotes for You to Enjoy

Billy Collins

American Poet

Born: Mar 22, 1941

Because Me People Poet Think You

Related authors: Edgar Allan Poe Emily Dickinson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Maya Angelou Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost T. S. Eliot Walt Whitman

The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement. If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you're simply using a pen to record what you have thought out. Billy Collins

You Thought Recording Pen Out Record Something Rather Write Simply Implement Instrument Discovery Than Just Agenda Using Letter Resignation

I learned snails don't have ears. They live in silence. They go slowly. Slowly, slowly in silence. Billy Collins

Silence Live Ears Slowly Learned Go

I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason weeks later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Billy Collins

Change Try Word Back Later Rip Some Minutes Poem Weeks Write Over Go Line Revise Very Get Sitting Tinker Done Just Much Forty Reason Whole Twenty Fast Thing Two

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. Billy Collins

Trust Key Rest First Signature Out Poem Constructed Reader Because Meter Line Lot Used Tone Basis

I find that my reading, particularly nonfiction, can inspire a poem as well as anything else. Billy Collins

Inspire Reading Else Find Poem Particularly Well Nonfiction Anything Anything Else

A lasting marriage, they say, is one where the two reach for different sections of the Sunday paper. Me, I go right for the obituaries, just like those very elderly characters in Muriel Spark's spooky novel, 'Memento Mori.' Billy Collins

Spooky Me Marriage Sunday Lasting Paper Say Those Sections Characters Memento Obituaries Like Reach Go Very Just Where Different Elderly Spark Novel They Say Right Two

If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you're simply using a pen to record what you have thought out. In a poem, the pen is more like a flashlight, a Geiger counter, or one of those metal detectors that people walk around beaches with. Billy Collins

I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboards, on cereal boxes. Billy Collins

Pretty Poetry Boxes Places Public Buses Cereal Much Billboards

I don't write for an auditorium full of people. I don't write for the microphone; I write for the page. Billy Collins

People Write Auditorium Microphone Page Full

I really have a distaste for poets who announce themselves at 50 yards; you know, here he comes, you know, with the beret and the cane and the cape and the whatever - whatever mishegas is part of the outfit there. Billy Collins

You Whatever Distaste Outfit Poets He Part Announce Know Yards Cane Cape Themselves Really Who Here

I'm all for poetry catching up with technology, and just as there are iTunes, I think we should have iPoems. I mean, people should be able to walk around with their earbuds in and listening to poems on their iPod. Billy Collins

Technology People Walk Listening Think Able Poems Poetry Catching Around iPod Up iTunes Just Mean Mean People Should

There are interesting forms of difficulty, and there are unprofitable forms of difficulty. I mean, I enjoy some difficult poetry, but some of it is impenetrable and I actually wouldn't want to penetrate it if I could, perhaps. Billy Collins

Enjoy Difficult Difficulty Penetrate Some Poetry Could Perhaps Want Forms Interesting Mean If I Could Actually

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. Billy Collins

Made Few Type Macintosh Out Poem Write Bound Up Canadian Send Door After Notebooks Then Company Drafts

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. Billy Collins

You Sometimes Will First Sense Think Other Tell Finds Poem Develop Feel Does Occur Line Continue Continuing Times Goes Gets Going Wants Reason Momentum Nowhere

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. Billy Collins

Attempts to put my poems to music have had disastrous results in all cases. And the poem, if it's written with the ear, already has been set to its own verbal music as it was composed. Billy Collins

Music Own Has-Been Composed Cases Poem Poems Results Had Attempts Written Put Disastrous Verbal Been Ear Set

I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies, and Loony Tunes cartoons. Billy Collins

Think Imagination Melodies Cartoons Brothers More Emily Emily Dickinson Loony Were Than Influential Tunes Wordsworth Warner Warner Brothers

I have my Poetry 180 project, which I've made my main project. We encourage high schools, because that's really where, for most people, poetry dies off and gets buried under other adolescent pursuits. Billy Collins

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