Quotes About Literature

Shakespeare is, after all, Britain's greatest poet and dramatist.

I don't believe there can be a poetic novel without political consciousness. I have a strong political conscience.

A lot of the Koran does not speak very eloquently to a Westerner. Much of it is either legalistic or opaquely poetic.

The crown of literature is poetry.

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

I don't think I've ever read poetry, ever.

A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.

I've got a book of poetry by the bed, one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans.

I am a patriot, but I must say that English poetry is the richest in the world.

The higher Greek poetry did not make up fictitious plots; its business was to express the heroic saga, the myths.

I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should, because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

I love a little Richard Brautigan poetry.

The biggest problem is people are afraid of poetry, think they can't understand it or that it will be boring.

My father read poetry to me, encouraged me to memorize poems. But the writing of it was quite a different thing.

I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

They need to learn poetry. They don't need to learn about poetry. They don't need to be told how to interpret poetry. They don't need to be told how to understand poetry. They need to learn it.

But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most.

I think poetry has lost an awful lot of its muscle because nobody knows any. Nobody has to memorize poetry.

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry.

I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.

I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.

It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.

Being in the Sahitya Akademi, I did know quite a few poets - Jayanta Mahapatra, Sitakant Mahapatra, Sunil Gangopadhyay, to name a few. There were many poets.

The historical legacy of 'The Best American Poetry' is they've had very few editors who were not white. They've had very few instances where they've selected poems by non-white poets.