I put it to you that there are no British poets, there are no British novelists. I have heard myself described as one, but I think really I'm an English novelist; there are Scottish poets and Scottish novelists.
A poet, any real poet, is simply an alchemist who transmutes his cynicism regarding human beings into an optimism regarding the moon, the stars, the heavens, and the flowers, to say nothing of the spring, love, and dogs.
The poet…is the man of metaphor: while the philosopher is interested only in the truth of meaning, beyond even signs and names, and the sophist manipulates empty signs…the poet plays on the multiplicity of signifieds.
John Keating: I was the intellectual equivalent of a 98-pound weakling! I would go to the beach and people would kick copies of Byron in my face!
Neil: [talking angrily to Todd] You're in the club! Being in the club means being stirred up by things! You look about as stirred up as a cesspool!
I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. When he looks back over the body of his work and he's written poetry then let the verdict be that he's a poet.
I never meant to be a full-time poet: I started out as a gardener, an ideal job for a poet because your head is left free.
Because I'm a younger laureate, it seemed important to me to do something - not to just accept the honor of the position, but actually to make it useful. It's hard though, I think, to come up with a good, meaningful project, because my predecessors h...
Divya Narendra: Everybody on campus was using it. "Facebook me" was the common expression after two weeks. And Mark was the biggest thing on a campus that included 19 Nobel laureates, 15 Pulitzer prize winners, 2 future Olympians and a movie star. Sy...
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.
Is it a world in the making that turns as it whistles to the depths of my being It is burning Suppose it were to appear A bleeding rosary at the window a sun setting on the marshlands ("Silver Clasp")
A bouquet yellow like remorse Hurts my view The cage The wheel The vile ennui of all mankind And no one no one to break my chains! ("Outcries")
The man slips along the stoically congealed houses Perpendicular like them A moving ornament Burning fiction His fragility contradicts the duration of his torments
Do you remember the long orphanage of the train stations We crossed cities that turn-tabled all day And vomited at night the sunshine of the day ("The Voyager")
Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were ...
the difference between poets and mystics . . . The mystic nails a symbol to one meaning that was true for a moment but soon becomes false. The poet, on the other hand, sees that truth but understands that symbols are always in flux and that their mea...
You don't sound like a scientist; you sound like a poet." Rey smiled. "Can I be both?" "But you'd rather be a poet." "Who wouldn't?" he said.
Only by glaring into the depths of ones own reflection can we find our true selves. It is here where the mirrored voices of our souls speak and can be heard.
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.
Papa thought that any book worth reading twice was worth owning. So instead of buying desserts, we bought books.
That the stars guide us, but do not compel us. It is our free will that determines the outcome of all things. God does impose his will on us, rather he makes it known and allows us to choose if we will follow it.
