Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Where are the songs I used to know, Where are the notes I used to sing? I have forgotten everything I used to know so long ago. ("The Key-Note")
Longing becomes more poignant if in the distance you can't tell whether your friend is going away or coming back. The pushing away pulls you in.
I always wanted to be some kind of writer - I wrote plays and songs and "books" before I realized living and breathing people still wrote poems.
Maybe it is only I, but conditions are such these days, that if you use studiously correct grammar, people suspect you of homosexual tendencies.
My land is bare of chattering folk; / the clouds are low along the ridges, / and sweet's the air with curly smoke / from all my burning bridges.
I never see that prettiest thing- A cherry bough gone white with Spring- But what I think, "How gay 'twould be To hang me from a flowering tree.
The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself, I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone.
I had grown up as an Irish poet in a country where the distance between vision and imagination was not quite as wide as in some other countries.
No, In fairy tales When to the ill-starred Prince the lady says 'I love you!' all his ugliness fades fast But I remain the same, up to the last!
Lord, I do fear Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year My soul is all but out of me-let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can.
The poet is like the wise fool or like a version of the stand-up, because we're standing, we're doing stand-up. That's exactly what we're doing.
If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind...for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour.
The belief that you have a great idea is not worth cuckoo spit. Ideas are ten a penny while the ability to execute counts for a great deal more.
I'm an entrepreneur, a businessman. I've got a lot of money, and that doesn't go very well with the whole 'starving artist in a garret' routine.
I realize that I was all error and deviation, that I never lived, that I existed only in so far as I filled time with consciousness and thought.
Where is it written that houses must be beige? Any dun colored house would look better if painted pineapple, cream, ochre, or even a smart sage.
Whatever lives, lives to die in sorrow. We engage our hearts, and grasp after the things of this world, only to undergo the pang of losing them.
Every once in a while, you live long enough to get the respect that people didn't want to give while you were trying to become a senior citizen.
If, like the prophet Noah, you have patience in the distress of the flood, Calamity turns aside, and the desire of a thousand years comes forth.
Come in, my dearFrom that harsh worldThat has rained elements of stoneUpon your tender face.Every soulShould receive a toast from usFor bravery!
Cupid has offered his arrows for Jesus to try;He has offered his bow for the game.But Jesus went weeping away, and left him there wondering why.
He is a Patron who looks down, / With careless eyes on men who drown; / But if they chance to reach the land, / Encumbers them with helping hand
So, on the eastern summit, clad in gray, morn, like a horseman girt for travel, comes, and from his tower of mist night's watchman hurries down.
O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried!
Youth, hope, and love: To build a new life on a ruined life, To make the future fairer than the past, And make the past appear a troubled dream.
Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell.
Let Love step down, open the clasped hands, forfeit the thorny crown, retrieve the garment that was whole, body and spirit one, spirit and soul.
Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.
David Simon goes to the Jewish Weekly and said he's made all this money, but he can't enjoy it because of criticism by people like Ishmael Reed.
It is a power stronger than will. Could a stone escape from the laws of gravity? Impossible. Impossible, for evil to form an alliance with good.
The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness.
A shepherd may be a very able, trusty, and good shepherd, without a sweetheart - better, perhaps, than with one. But what is he without his dog?
In short, if your body or mind Or your soul or your purse come to grief, You need only get drunk, and you'll find Complete and immediate relief.
Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.
The creative is always an act of recombination, with something added by new juxtapositionas making a spark requires two things struck together.
Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood - the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body.
Many of the women in Los Angeles are part of the notorious gang culture, and they will forever have my gratitude for, you know, letting me live.
The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.
Twice or thrice had I loved thee before I knew thy face or name, so in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, angels affect us oft, and worshiped be.
Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Is there no hope? the sick man said, The silent doctor shook his head, And took his leave with signs of sorrow, Despairing of his fee to-morrow.
Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age.
In kindly showers and sunshine bud The branches of the dull gray wood; Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks The blue eye of the violet looks.
And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!
The Lord who gave us Earth and Heaven Takes that as thanks for all He's given. The book he lent is given back All blotted red and smutted black.
Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery, Death's harbinger.
Sweet bird that shunn'st the nose of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song.
'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
When thou attended gloriously from heaven , Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send Thy summoning archangels to proclaim Thy dread tribunal.