Quotes from James Broughton

I never wanted to dilute my private passion for the art by airing and arguing it in public.

Acclaim is a distraction.

True delicacy is not a fragile thing.

A born poet knows in his cradle that a poetic life is the only life worth living.

Life is adventure, not predicament.

I like things which appear fragile but are tough inside.

Consciousness is the glory of creation.

Rarest of the real poets are born poets. They are the oddballs, not the professors.

Life's major challenge: getting reborn often enough.

The most astonishing joy is to receive from the muses the gift of a whole lyric.

I had a toy theater and a magic lantern, and when I was eight I built a stage for theatricals in the attic.

Some artists shrink from self-awareness, fearing that it will destroy their unique gifts and even their desire to create. The truth of the matter is quite opposite.

My earliest poems sing of the absolute necessity of allowing love to invade and pervade one's life. That can make the miracle happen in reality. Try it.

My major aim in writing is to set out flags and issue wake-up calls.

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.

If bitterness wants to get into the act, I offer it a cookie or a gumdrop.

Trusting your individual uniqueness challenges you to lay yourself open.

Most poets in their youth begin in adolescent sadness. I find it more rewarding to end in gladness.

Everything is Song. Everything is Silence. Since it all turns out to be illusion, perfectly being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, you are free to die laughing.

Work in the theater sharpened my verse and my cinema.

I'm happy to report that my inner child is still ageless.

Adversity is a stimulus.

Amazement awaits us at every corner.

And to Shakespeare I owe my vision of the world as a theater, wherein all humans are acting out their parts.