"In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever."

Writing, Identity, Creativity, Life

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"In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever."

Exlpore more Writing quotes

"Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists."

Sara Sheridan, Scottish Author

Writing, Creativity, Identity, Profession

"A true piece of writing sets you free."

A. D. Posey, American Poet

Writing, Freedom, Creativity, Expression

"You are the writer of your life story, so don't forget to write the best one."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Writing, Story, Life, Creation, Self

"If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered."

Stephen King, American Author

Writing, Truth, Honesty, Society

"Through writing, an author opens the window of his heart through which a reader can see the inner self of the author."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Writing, Heart

"Writing means not just staring ugliness in the face, but finding a way to embrace it."

Veronica Roth, American Author

Writing, Truth, Reality, Acceptance

"Write about the beauty of rainbows and the glint of reflected light that can enlighten readers' minds."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Writing, Beauty, Rainbows, Light

"Writing is a great way of talking with an endless audience for never-ending time."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Writing, Talking, Audience, Creation

"What is your advice to young writers? "Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes."

Charles Bukowski, American Author

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"All writing is rewriting."

John Green, American Author

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Explore more quotes by W. H. Auden

"All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation."

Addiction

"Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods."

Relationship

"Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another."

Experience

"I am sure it is everyone's experience, as it has been mine, that any discovery we make about ourselves or the meaning of life is never, like a scientific discovery, a coming upon something entirely new and unsuspected; it is rather, the coming to conscious recognition of something, which we really knew all the time but, because we were unwilling to formulate it correctly, we did not hitherto know we knew."

Life

"Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return."

Paradise

"What living occasion can,Be just to the absent?"

Absence

"Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table."

Evil

"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."

Originality

"Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one."

Poetry

"Follow, poet, follow rightTo the bottom of the night,With your unconstraining voiceStill persuade us to rejoice;With the farming of a verseMake a vineyard of the curse,Sing of human unsuccessIn a rapture of distress;In the deserts of the heartLet the healing fountain start,In the prison of his daysTeach the free man how to praise."

Knowledge