Poetry Quotes

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to a war, and even more to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy. It's always so.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.

Carol Ann Duffy

Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Manifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew.

Seamus Heaney

I read poetry to save time.

Marilyn Monroe

Poetry's always dead, you know? You don't realize how good poetry is until 15 years later.

Richard Hell

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

Anne Stevenson

Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding, there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground, poets in schools, football clubs, zoos.

Andrew Motion

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

Nathalie Sarraute

Then I discovered I loved writing poetry more than fiction.

George Murray

Unfortunately, poetry is not born in noise, in crowds, or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about.

Wislawa Szymborska

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal, or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction, but often it's really just about the money, the perceived prestige.

George Murray

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

Lynn Johnston

I really enjoy English and poetry and writing classes.

Taylor Momsen

The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of dead end.

Robert Morgan

Poetry says the things that I can't say. I read a lot, but I never write it.

Trevor McDonald

Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry.

Julie Taymor

Fiction will always be my greatest love, with poetry close behind.

J. Courtney Sullivan

I'm perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it's all women. I always think it's kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry.

Diane Wakoski

I've got a book of poetry by the bed, one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans.

Martin C. Smith