"Whenever I write a dramatic poem I can't understand why the characters should ever want to be anything but poets themselves."

Poetry, Writing, Creativity, Expression

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"Whenever I write a dramatic poem I can't understand why the characters should ever want to be anything but poets themselves."

Exlpore more Poetry quotes

"The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times."

Robert Morgan, American Soldier

Poetry, Age, People, Perceptions

"I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that."

Robert Morgan, American Soldier

Poetry, Fiction, Past

"I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony."

Mark Strand, American Poet

Poetry,

"But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events."

Diane Wakoski, American Poet

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"A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be."

Mark Strand, American Poet

Poetry, People, Nothing, Writing

"In the grueling light that passed for day..."

Cormac McCarthy, American Writer

Poetry, Light, Life, Description

"And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem."

Mark Strand, American Poet

Poetry, Lie, Direction, Want

"That orbed maiden with white fire laden Whom mortals call the moon."

Percy Bysshe Shelley, English Poet

Poetry, Nature, Beauty, Imagery

"I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream."

Mark Strand, American Poet

Poetry, Purpose, America

"Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,But never will be sung to us again,Is they remembrance. Now the hour of restHath come to thee. Sleep, darling: it is best."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American Poet

Poetry, Remembrance, Sadness, Love, Beauty

Explore more quotes by Saul Bellow

"Conquered people tend to be witty."

People

"Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps."

Goal

"Maybe America didn't need art and inner miracles. It had so many outer ones. The USA was a big operation, very big. The more it, the less we."

Society

"There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for."

Life

"It was probably no accident that it was the cripple Hephaestus who made ingenious machines; a normal man didn't have to hoist or jack himself over hindrances by means of cranks, chains and metal parts. Then it was in the line of human advance that Einhorn could do so much."

Innovation

"I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture."

Business

"No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection."

Fear

"A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life."

Life

"A professor from UBC observed that he agreed with Alexander Pope about the ultimate unreality of evil. Seen from the highest point of metaphysics. To a rational mind, nothing bad ever really happens. He was talking high-minded balls. Twaddle! I thought. I said, 'Oh? Do you mean that every gas chamber has a silver lining?"

Philosophy

"The sun was shut up in a cold bottle."

Nature