Any honest housewife would sort them out, Having a nose for fish, an eye for apples.
ROBERT GRAVESThere’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.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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A well-chosen anthology is a complete dispensary of medicine for the more common mental disorders, and may be used as much for prevention as cure.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties.
ROBERT GRAVES -
For words of rapture groping, they”Never such love,” swore “ever before was!”
ROBERT GRAVES -
If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I should suppress it with a blush; and I should do the same if I ever found I were imitating myself. Every poem should be new, unexpected, inimitable, and incapable of being parodied.
ROBERT GRAVES -
I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate.
ROBERT GRAVES -
When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You’ll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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 -
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 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.
ROBERT GRAVES -
In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
ROBERT GRAVES -
If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.
ROBERT GRAVES -
A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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 -
This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.
ROBERT GRAVES -
The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut it out.
ROBERT GRAVES -
But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost’s poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the companionship of moon, water, hills and trees. Retreat, he reminds us, should not be confused with escape. And take these poems along for good luck!
ROBERT GRAVES -
A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Love at first sight’some say misnaming Discovery of twinned helplessness Against the huge tug of procreation. But friendship at first sight? This also Catches fiercely at the surprised heart So that the cheek blanches then blushes.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.
ROBERT GRAVES -
If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.
ROBERT GRAVES