The poet’s first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to bore himself-which, of course, means to write only when he has something urgent to say.
ROBERT GRAVESFaults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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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.
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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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When I’m killed, don’t think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there’s one thing that I know well, I’m damned if I’ll be damned to Hell!
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Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.
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Genius not only diagnoses the situation but supplies the answers.
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If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.
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One smile relieves a heart that grieves.
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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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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.
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Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes.
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The decline of true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their personality and become the instruments of other people’s wills.
ROBERT GRAVES