John Keats

"Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition."

Eli Khamarov

"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."

Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."

Don Marquis

"Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know."

Joseph Roux

"The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see-it is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life."

Robert Penn Warren

"The poem is the point at which our strength gave out."

Richard Rosen

"The poet doesn't invent. He listens."

Jean Cocteau

"The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth."

Jean Cocteau

"The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, Oh, just let me enjoy the poem."

Robert Penn Warren

"The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather."

Lionel Trilling

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

Gilbert K. Chesterton

"There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing."

John Cage

"There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either."

Robert Graves

"Therefore is a word the poet must not know."

Andre Gide

"To be a poet is a condition, not a profession."

Robert Frost

"To have great poets, there must be great audiences."

Walt Whitman

"Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket."

Charles Simic

"You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick... You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in."

Dylan Thomas

"You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone."

John Ciardi

"You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you."

Joseph Joubert