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"I have become intrigued with the combining of seemingly unrelated ideas or images, or the drawing upon the many, sometimes dissimilar, meanings a word might have."
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"No writer can be the 'Master of the Words' without loving them! Loving is the way for Mastering! No Love, no Master!"

"You've got to make an effort to get the details right, because even through someone picks it up and knows it's a novel, they know someone's made it up and they know it's not real, if you make a small mistake they will cease to imaginatively engage with the story."

"I decided to coin the term 'cosy crime noir' for Brighton Belle. That is 'cosy crime' for today's sensibilities because there is that slightly edgy element to it."

"What makes people tick? Life can be a trap of ennui, but imagery may be a redemptive escape from dullness. The iconic power and exuberance of images generate an inexorable addiction that needs to be gratified without respite. Here and now! ['Give me more images']"

"Authors always carry a means for scribbling and an excuse for pausing, often inopportunely, to record those fleeting sparks of creative fancy that might otherwise vanish like a wisp in the wind if ignored. Writing is a jealous and needy lover."

"I like bubbles in everything. I respect the power of silence. In cold or warm weather I favor a mug of hot cocoa. I admire cats-their autonomy, grace, and mystery. I awe at the fiery colors in a sunset. I believe in deity. I hear most often with my eyes, and I will trust a facial expression before any accompanying comment. I invent rules, words, adventures, and imaginary friends. I pretend something wonderful every day. I will never quit pretending."

"Some people have a handful of ideas, but not enough time to realize them."

"I spent an hour looking at pots and carpets in the museums the other day, until the desire to describe them became like the desire for the lusts of the flesh."

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say."

"Do you know I get such a passion for reading sometimes its like the other passion -writing- only the wrong side of the carpet."
Explore more quotes by John Barton

"Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them."

"An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive."

"We are comfortable with the fact that we cannot know personally what happened in the world before we were born, yet we are uncomfortable with the notion that we will stop engaging with time at some point in the future."

"Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their lives and so inevitably write autobiographical verse."

"Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem."

"The experiment of the poem is mostly intuitive. I write the first draft, pulling in the various elements that interest me, in the hope that their being combined will lead to some kind of insight."

"The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality."
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