Quotes About Perspective

All pasts are like poems; one can derive a thousand things, but not live in them.

On sighting mathematicians poetry should unhook the algebra from their minds and replace it with poetry; on sighting poets it should unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra.

Why do you always write poetry? Why do you not write prose? Prose is so much more difficult.

Poetry is like painting: one piece takes your fancy if you stand close to it, another if you keep at some distance.

I dislike a great deal of contemporary poetry - all of the past you read is usually quite great - but it is a useful thorn to have in one's side.

Why speak of the use of poetry? Poetry is what uses us.

one reason why I like writing poetry - you can say so many things in it that are true in poetry but wouldn't be true in prose.

Without poetry, stories would be told in sepia.

I have always loved American poetry, which is very different from Irish poetry.

An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .

Poetry cannot take sides except with life.

My wife has a beastly habit of comparing poetry -- all literature in fact -- to the droppings of the goats among the rocks -- mere excreta that fertilises the ground it falls on.

Poetry is partly sympathy, don't you think? If it's any good, it gets people to think about others' points of view.

If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago He would've thought they were birds Or angels from another world Or messengers from other planets.

No poem ever bought a hamburger, or not too many.

Why poetry, you ask? Because of life, I answer.

The world is full of poetry as the earth is of pay-dirt; one only needs to know how to strike it.

Lovers needn't always agree, anymore than poetry need always rhyme.

Most of humanity gets by without reading novels or poetry, and no one would deny the richness of their thoughts.

A certain kind of poetry looks back at experience from an older perspective.

This, in the end, might be the greatest social good of poetry: to get us to live differently, with a different sort of thinking and concentration, even if it's just for a few moments.

I don't think it's always good to read lots of poetry

Let's be honest - Bill Murray was onto something when he laughed at Andie MacDowell's degree in 19th century French poetry in 'Groundhog Day'.

I myself always want to talk about "poetry," not "the poem."