Literature and Words

What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole,

All poets are mad.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

When found, make a note of.

Oh may I join the choir invisible

I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,

Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.

People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

Proicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.

Lexicographer. A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right.

I rejoice to concur with the common reader.

Inceptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis Purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter Adsuitur pannus.

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.

Ere Babylon was dust,

How wonderful is Death,

Most wretched men

Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.

You should study the Peerage, Gerald … It is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.

SOME EDITORS ARE FAILED WRITERS, BUT SO ARE MOST WRITERS.