Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.
-Alfred De Musset
"Le Poète déchu"
Quotations
Poet
A few moments in a poet’s company teach us more about the essence of art than many a lecture and books.
-Etinne Gilsun
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"
No poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it.
-W. H. Auden
"The Dyer's Hand"
A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.
-Edmond De Goncourt
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
-T. S. Eliot
"Dante"
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
A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof.
-René Char
The worst fate of a poet is to be admired without being understood.
-Jean Cocteau
"Le Rappel á l'ordre"
