A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
-Jay Z
"Decoded"
Quotations
Poet
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
-W. H. Auden
If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average.
-Derek Walcott
A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof.
-René Char
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
-Jean Cocteau
I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.
-Pablo Neruda
Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.
-Alfred De Musset
"Le Poète déchu"
Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
-Jean Cocteau
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
-T. S. Eliot
"Dante"
Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young.
-Antoine De Saint Exupéry
