Quotations

Remarks poets made beyond their poems — letters, journals, conversation — gathered as a readable library. Browse by topic or author, or search the words themselves. Currently 7,220 active remarks.

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Topic: Writing

Showing 24 of 492 · page 8 of 21

“I am taking the opportunity to send you the last book I have written. I doubt whether you will care to read it; I doubt whether you will like it, if you do.”

A wonderfully self-deprecating response to the prospect of burdening a friend with a book · Letter to Ireland, January 15, 1885

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“Poems are rarely printed correctly in newspapers. This is the reason so many poets die young. Please correct carefully.”

A characteristically Holmesian joke about the hazards of careless printing · Note accompanying a poem sent to a newspaper

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“I am doing what in me lies to keep alive poetry with a little conscience in it.”

Expressing his belief that poetry should retain a moral seriousness and sense of responsibility. · Conversation, as recalled in The Poets' Chantry

Sir Aubrey de Vere

“One must consider that many people want to say something significant without being productive, and the strangest things then come to light.”

Original: Man muß bedenken, daß unter den Menschen gar viele sind, die doch auch etwas Bedeutendes sagen wollen, ohne produktiv zu sein, und da kommen die wunderlichsten Dinge an den Tag. — Goethe links empty claims to the desire for significance without the discipline of productive work. · Maxims and Reflections (German)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Thus much I hope will serve to justify my poem, and make you understand it; to teach you more for nothing, I do not know that I am in conscience bound.”

A witty assertion of the author's limits when confronted with readers who have misunderstood his work · Preface, To the Reader

“Understand a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures.”

Defending the importance of plausibility and natural characterisation in pastoral drama · Preface, To the Reader

“For as innocence and virtue were ever the boundaries of his Muse, so in this little poem he had no other view.”

Carey's claim that moral innocence and virtue guided his literary work · Preface to Sally in Our Alley, 1729

“That seems to me a harsh but not unjust description.”

Joyce’s willingness to accept criticism is tempered by his characteristic irony. · Letter to George Antheil, 3 January 1931

“Not only will the reader know everything and know it in the baldest coldest way.”

Joyce explains the deliberately exhaustive and impersonal style of Ithaca. · Letter to Frank Budgen, 28 February 1921

“I have given only catchwords in my scheme but I think you will understand it all the same.”

Joyce’s shorthand description of his structural scheme reflects his confidence in collaborative interpretation. · Letter to Carlo Linati, 1920

“Otherwise, write to Rodker and ask him to let you have the other copies.”

A practical glimpse of the complicated circulation of Ulysses during its composition. · Letter to Carlo Linati, 1920

“Perhaps my idea will appear clearer to you when you have the text.”

Joyce acknowledges the difficulty of explaining an experimental work through abstract description alone. · Letter to Carlo Linati, 1920

“If I am to write anything fine or noble in the future I shall do so only by listening at the doors of your heart.”

Joyce connects his creative life with the emotional intimacy of his relationship with Nora. · Letter to Nora Barnacle, October 1909

“I dislike to hear of any stray heroics on the prowl for me.”

A dry dismissal of romanticised ideas about the suffering artist. · Letter concerning his writing

“It was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care.”

Joyce describes the writer’s task as preserving fleeting moments of revelation. · Stephen Hero, discussion of epiphany

“Some day I will expand that sentence into a treatise.”

A playful glimpse of Joyce’s ambition to develop his aesthetic ideas systematically. · Aesthetic discussion in Stephen Hero

“In the particular is contained the universal.”

A concise statement of Joyce’s artistic principle of reaching the universal through precise local detail. · As cited by Richard Ellmann, James Joyce

“For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world.”

Joyce explains how intense attention to one particular place can reveal universal human experience. · As cited by Richard Ellmann, James Joyce

“I fear he does not like the book.”

A brief glimpse of Joyce’s sensitivity to Ezra Pound’s response to Ulysses. · Letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver, 1919

“You write that the last episode sent seems to you to show a weakening or diffusion of some sort.”

Joyce’s correspondence shows how closely he engaged with criticism of his developing work. · Letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver, 1919

“There may not have been any willful stupidity in it, but truly I can say no more.”

Joyce’s youthful candour about the limitations of his first critical writing is disarming. · Letter to William Archer concerning Ibsen, 1900

“One thing only I regret, namely, that an immature and hasty article should have met your eye, rather than something better and worthier of your praise.”

The young Joyce combines pride in his achievement with striking self-criticism. · Letter to William Archer concerning Ibsen, 1900

“I require this information in detail in order to determine the wording of a paragraph.”

A revealing example of Joyce’s extraordinary concern with factual precision in his fiction. · Letter to his aunt Josephine Murray, 2 November 1921

“I also want all the information you can give, tittletattle, facts etc about Holles Street maternity hospital.”

The playful phrase captures Joyce’s appetite for both gossip and factual detail in constructing Ulysses. · Letter to his aunt Josephine Murray, February 1920