A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
ROBERT GRAVESBefore an attack, the platoon pools all its available cash and the survivors divide it up afterwards. Those who are killed can’t complain, the wounded would have given far more than that to escape as they have, and the unwounded regard the money as a consolation prize for still being here.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.
ROBERT GRAVES -
She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.
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For words of rapture groping, they”Never such love,” swore “ever before was!”
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There’s a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.
ROBERT GRAVES -
So when I’m killed, don’t wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don’t wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You’ll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you’ve read.
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I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.
ROBERT GRAVES -
I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.
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No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.
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Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.
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About this business of being a gentleman: I paid so heavily for the fourteen years of my gentleman’s education that I feel entitled, now and then, to get some sort of return.
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Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.
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The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.
ROBERT GRAVES