Quotations on Poetry are from FAMOUS LASTING WORDS, John Robert Colombo's Great Canadian Quotations, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.
"Poetry is the shortest possible way of saying the sort of things I want to say."
~ Earle Birney, poet, quoted by Bruce Ward in The Toronto Star, 21 May 1978.
"How beautifully useless, / how deliciously defiant / a poem is!"
~ lines from Raymond Souster's poem "Cutting It Short." Asking for More (1988)
"We're living in too materialistic a society. I'd rather have a few more poets and fewer plumbers." ~ Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Prime Minister, addressing young Liberals at the University of Toronto, 23 March 1977, quoted in The Toronto Star the following day.
