No poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it.
-W. H. Auden
"The Dyer's Hand"
Quotations
Poet
Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
-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
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
-Jean Cocteau
A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.
-Edmond De Goncourt
The poet is much more the one who inspires, than the one who is inspired.
-Paul Éluard
A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko
"The Sole Survivor"
A few moments in a poet’s company teach us more about the essence of art than many a lecture and books.
-Etinne Gilsun
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
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
-Plato
