Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.
ROBERT GRAVESThe sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of Her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
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Profession, Condition, Poet, Wide, Beautiful, Impressive, Poetry, Effect, Saying, Result, Impress
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He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits: This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid. Till in the end he could not change the tragic habits This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.
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Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.
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Never use the word ‘audience.’ The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don’t have an ‘audience’. They’re talking to a single person all the time.
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Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ‘s narrowness, though not its peace.
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Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild I’d love to be a Fairy’s child.
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I revise the manuscript till I can’t read it any longer, then I get somebody to type it. Then I revise the typing. Then it’s retyped again. Then there’s a third typing, which is the final one. Nothing should then remain that offends the eye.
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Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony.
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Any honest housewife would sort them out,/ Having a nose for fish, an eye for apples.
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Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ‘s narrowness, though not its peace.
ROBERT GRAVES -
I don’t really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn’t create them out of nothing. I owe them to my relations with other people.
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I was thinking, “So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I’ll be able to make people read my books now.
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Myths are seldom simple, and never irresponsible.
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Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart’s desire.
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Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
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The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.
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The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.
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Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.
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In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.
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The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.
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The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of Her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
ROBERT GRAVES -
New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.
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To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
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I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and – if he is lucky enough – know the love of an honest woman.
ROBERT GRAVES