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Quotes About Poetry

Reading poetry, even if you are only reading it to find a secret message hidden within its words, can often give one a feeling of power the way you can feel powerful if you are the only one who brought an umbrella on a rainy day, of the only one who knows how to untie knots when you're taken hostage.
~ Lemony Snicket
What does 'giddy' mean?" Violet asked, when they had finished reading the note. "'Dizzy and excited,'" Klaus said, having learned the word from a collection of poetry he'd read in first grade. "I guess he means excited about Peru. Or maybe he's excited about having a new assistant." "Or maybe he's excited about us," Violet said.
~ Lemony Snicket
You know, bad poetry I wrote in high school can still be found on the Internet, and, you know, there's a Web log of our college newspaper. You know, there's so many different stages of my creative development are sort of on-record if somebody were to choose to look for them.
~ Lena Dunham
Poetry is alive because it is a medium of vision and experience. It is not necessarily comfortable. It is not necessarily safe.
~ Lenore Kandel
Euphemisms chosen by fear are a covenant with hypocrisy and will immediately destroy the poem and eventually destroy the poet.
~ Lenore Kandel
There are no barriers to poetry or prophecy; by their nature they are barrier-breakers, bursts of perceptions, lines into infinity. If the poet lies about his vision he lies about himself and in himself; this produces a true barrier.
~ Lenore Kandel
He chooses his language for its rich canorousness rather than for intensity of meaning.
~ James Russell Lowell
Like every great writer before or since, Jonson understood that the best poets 'are both made and born'. That all great writing has to be hammered out and all great poets stand or fall by that 'second heat', their laboured revision.
~ James Shapiro
Sonnet 55 that "Not marble nor the gilded monuments / Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme" [1–2]).
~ James Shapiro
A poem is a revelation, and it is by the brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind.
~ James Stephens
Why do you live on the bank of a river?' was one of these questions. 'Because a poem in a revelation, and it is by the brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind.
~ James Stephens
It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.
~ James Wright
He saw the black water and the declining sun and the swan dipping down, its white wings flashing, and slowing and slowing till silver ripples carried it home. It was a scene which seemed the heart of this land. The lowing sun and the one star waking, white wings on a black water, and the smell of rain, and the long lane fading where a voice comes in the falling night. --Ireland, said Scrotes. --Yes, this is Ireland.
~ Jamie O'Neill
Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.
~ Jane Austen
I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love said Darcy. Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.
~ Jane Austen
she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
~ Jane Austen
Elizabeth Bennet: And that put paid to it. I wonder who first discovered the power of poetry in driving away love? Mr. Darcy: I thought that poetry was the food of love. Elizabeth Bennet: Of a fine stout love, it may. But if it is only a vague inclination I'm convinced one poor sonnet will kill it stone dead Mr. Darcy: So what do you recommend to encourage affection? Elizabeth Bennet: Dancing. Even if one's partner is barely tolerable.
~ Jane Austen
And so ended his affection, said Elizabeth impatiently. There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love! I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love, said Darcy.
~ Jane Austen
Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. — It is not fair. — He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. — I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it — but fear I must.
~ Jane Austen
I've been used to consider poetry as the food of love Mr.Darcy Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away. Eliza
~ Jane Austen
The season, the scene, the air, were all favourable to tenderness and sentiment.
~ Jane Austen
I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!- Elizabeth Bennet
~ Jane Austen
Is not poetry the food of love?
~ Jane Austen
She ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry; and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
~ Jane Austen