Remarks by James Whitcomb Riley | V2Melody Quotations

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”

Popular as the seed of the duck test, though the wording's origin is disputed · Commonly attributed remark; no verse or letter source has been firmly shown

“It demands simple sentiments that come direct from the heart.”

His measure of a poem that would hold a listening room · Recollection of his platform readings, biographical sketch

“The public desires nothing but what is absolutely natural, and so perfectly natural as to be fairly artless. It cannot tolerate affectation.”

What years of reading aloud taught him audiences would bear · Recollection of his platform readings, biographical sketch

“Romantic things are good in Art and Poetry, but a Woman's heart is worth them all.”

Setting living affection above the romance of books · Letter to Elizabeth Kahle, 1879

“I have many friends, but more enemies, and can scarcely tell which I most enjoy, for I really enjoy being hated by some people.”

A young poet's relish for opposition as much as for friendship · Letter to Elizabeth Kahle, 21 February 1879

“I write sentimental verses occasionally, simply because I don't believe in love and am anxious to convince myself of my error.”

A bachelor's half-jesting account of why he kept writing of love · Letter to Elizabeth Kahle, 21 February 1879

“If pathetic, with your own tears baptized and made good as mirth.”

Pathos earned only when the writer's own feeling stands behind it · Letter to Madison Cawein, 3 July 1890

“Keep 'em all sunny and sweet and wholesome clean to the core, or, if ever tragic, with sound hopes ultimate.”

Advice that even sorrow in verse should keep a hope at the end · Letter to Madison Cawein, 3 July 1890

“I notice the poems we love the best — the poems that really live — have always blood and pulse and heart-warmth in them. There's the thing!”

Living verse, for him, was the verse that still felt warm · Letter to an old friend, 4 March 1883

“All melancholy themes are pets of mine — positively; but I am growing to avoid them as much as possible.”

A turn away from gloom toward the poems he thought would last · Letter to an old friend, 4 March 1883

“My idea is to have it less profound than entertaining.”

A plain statement of the pleasure he meant his work to give · Letter, 1879

“For some years I've been striving to ferret out the one evident lack of our whole art guild; and I've struck it: It's business. We naturally hate that, and therefore avoid it. That's why we're all victims.”

On artists undone by their dislike of the practical side of the trade · Letter to Rudyard Kipling, 1893

“Prose likes me not. In fact, prose is the only verse I write that is worse than my other verse.”

A wry confession that verse, not prose, was his real instrument · Letter to a publisher, 1897

“When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago.”

Fame as the late public name for long private labour · Commonly quoted with his remarks on persistence, 1890s

“Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these.”

A companion insistence that effort, not luck, carries the day · Quoted in The Writer, 1897

“The most essential factor is persistence — the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.”

On the staying power that outlasts the inevitable setbacks of a working life · Quoted in The Writer, 1897

“The best of all things is to be natural.”

The attribution is widespread but a definitive primary source is unclear · Prose remark, commonly attributed

Beauty
Truth

“The more you talk about your troubles, the more troubles you have to talk about.”

Popularly attributed to Riley, but the primary source is not securely established · Prose remark, commonly attributed

“There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.”

Encouraging confidence in one’s untapped abilities · Prose remark, commonly attributed

Hope
Truth

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