399 Poet Quotes for You to Enjoy

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry. Nathalie Sarraute

People Poet Poetry Write Like Readers Cannot Who

To the poet fated to be a poet, self-expression is as natural and as involuntary as breathing is to us ordinary mortals. Octavio Paz

Natural Poet Mortals Involuntary Self-Expression Ordinary Breathing Us Fated

For the Chinese, the Greeks, the Mayans, or the Egyptians, nature was a living totality, a creative being. For this reason, art, according to Aristotle, is imitation; the poet imitates the creative gesture of nature. Octavio Paz

Art Nature Creative Poet Gesture Living Imitates Imitation Totality Aristotle According Greeks Egyptians Being Chinese Reason

Poesy must not be drawn by the ears: it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead, which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it. Philip Sidney

Strength Lie Genius Cause Made Poet Own Other Ears Drawn Ancient Carried Must Rather Divine Lead Since Wit Make Partly Industry Learned Gently Ready His Led Affirm Any Human Which Skill

God is the perfect poet. Robert Browning

God Poet Poetry Perfect

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. Robert Frost

Work Poet Condition Profession

To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession. Robert Graves

Poet Rather Condition Than Profession

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing. T. S. Eliot

Life Time Game Value Poet Nothing Must Poetry He Written Feel Messed Messed Up Sure Permanent Always His Up Quite May Mug Ever Wasted Things Fundamentally Career Honest

I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island. Thornton Wilder

Love Poet Would Laureate Poet Laureate Island

A poet who is a bad man is a degraded being, baser and more culpable than a bad man who is not a poet. Victor Hugo

Man Poet Bad Degraded Bad Man More Than Being Who

The poet gives us his essence, but prose takes the mold of the body and mind. Virginia Woolf

Mind Poet Gives Prose Takes His Essence Us Body Mold

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted. W. H. Auden

The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence. Wallace Stevens

Poet Philosopher Merely Proves Existence Exists

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman. Wallace Stevens

Man Woman World Poet Way Poetry Looks

The poet is the priest of the invisible. Wallace Stevens

Poet Priest Invisible

The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency - half tiger, half poet. Yehudi Menuhin

Rare Poet Half Distilled Potency Tiger Human Phenomenon Violinist

A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote. Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Poet Else Poetry His Just Autobiography Anything Anything Else

The strong bond of sisterhood was a famous trait in classical art and literature about Amazons. But it was modern people who interpreted that as a sexual preference for women. That started in the 20th century. The Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva declared that Amazons were symbolic of lesbianism in antiquity. Adrienne Mayor

Art Women People Strong Poet Sexual Classical About Russian Were Antiquity Sisterhood Trait Modern Famous Literature Preference Century Who Interpreted Bond Started Symbolic

I think that that's why artists make art - it is difficult to put into words unless you are a poet. What it takes is being open to the flow of universal creativity. The Zen artists knew this. Alex Grey

Art You Creativity Words Poet Difficult Think Unless Open Put Knew Takes Make Artists Being Zen Why Universal Flow

I've known the poet Eileen Myles since the 1990s, when I first moved to New York, and I remember seeing her walking her Pit Bull Rosie around the East Village. She had these beautiful arms and David Cassidy hair and the sort of swagger so many of the gay boys I knew wished we had. We all had crushes on her. Alexander Chee

Beautiful Gay Remember Poet Hair First East East Village Seeing David Had Knew Since New Wished Crushes She Arms Known Sort Around Boy Bull Walking York Pit Moved New York Swagger Rosie Many Village Her

The thing that fiction can do is look from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Even memoir leaves me somewhat frustrated. I think now we need a poet to uncover what isn't on the surface. Alice McDermott

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does. Allen Ginsberg

According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for. Allen Tate

Invent Poet Doctors Become Ambition Confederate Society Else Would About General Could Because Been Beg According Up Personal Personal Ambitions Anything Anything Else Fictions Use Desire Set

My father is a poet. He's a literary giant of this country - writes in Hindi - and also quite unique because he has a Ph.D. in English Literature. He taught at Harvard University, which is one of the most prominent universities in the country. Amitabh Bachchan

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