Poetry Quotes

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.

Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.

I love poetry. If my mind gets a bit tight or bound up with information or depressed with bad news, I find a good book of poetry is like going to the gym for an hour. My mind just expands.

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

Songs are all poetry, and they don't make any sense.

But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

Poetry is necessary, but is the poet?

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.

I've written poetry most of my life.

The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others.

Thinking in its lower grades, is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry.

Today the U.S. is farther from being nourished by poetry than it was a hundred years ago, when books of poems were best-sellers.

Art: If the object of poetry is, to make men, then poetry is the heir of prophecy.

I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings. Deep songs don't come from the surface; they come from the deep down. The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write, I believe are in your heart.

Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.

If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.