On Understanding Poetry ~

"The poet's mind is . . . a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together."
~ T. S. Eliot

"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose ~ words in their best order; poetry ~ the best words in their best order."
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Take care of the sounds and the sense will take care of itself."
~ Lewis Carroll

"When you write in prose you say what you mean. When you write in rhyme you say what you must."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: he may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing."
~ T. S. Eliot


Source: The Fitzhenry & Whiteside BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, Edited by Robt. Fitzhenry,1981