Famous quotes containing the words poetry, children, books, collections, carol, works, ann and/or plays:
“Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in words: the most primitive nations have poetry, but only quite well developed civilizations can produce good prose. So don’t think of poetry as a perverse and unnatural way of distorting ordinary prose statements: prose is a much less natural way of speaking than poetry is. If you listen to small children, and to the amount of chanting and singsong in their speech, you’ll see what I mean.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)
“The inability to control our children’s behavior feels the same as not being able to control it in ourselves. And the fact is that primitive behavior in children does unleash primitive behavior in mothers. That’s what frightens mothers most. For young children, even when out of control, do not have the power to destroy their mothers, but mothers who are out of control feel that they may destroy their children.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Only my books anoint me,
and a few friends,
those who reach into my veins.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“When you’re 50 you start thinking about things you haven’t thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.”
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)
“Only the more uncompromising of the mystics still seek for knowledge in a silent land of absolute intuition, where the intellect finally lays down its conceptual tools, and rests from its pragmatic labors, while its works do not follow it, but are simply forgotten, and are as if they never had been.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Self-interest speaks all sort of languages, and plays all sort of roles—even that of disinterest.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)