Francine Prose Quotes

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Many good poets are really essayists who write very short essays.

But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

I am always pleased to be asked to write a poem.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.

I started writing poetry when I was in the fifth grade, just rhyming in class.

For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.

The talent of a true writer and poet is in the ear.

Poets take themselves very seriously.

Granted, I'm someone who loves words. I've always loved poetry - so it's suited to me.

Prose is all about embellishing and describing.

We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.

I'm a poet, and I spent my life in poetry.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

I must say, when I reread myself, it's the poetry I tend to look at. It's the most exciting to write, and it's over the quickest.

Verse in itself does not constitute poetry. Verse is only an elegant vestment for a beautiful form. Poetry can express itself in prose, but it does so more perfectly under the grace and majesty of verse. It is poetry of soul that inspires noble sentiments and noble actions as well as noble writings.

Poets write the words you have heard before but in a new sequence.

A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke.

Poetry is the art which is technically within the grasp of everyone: a piece of paper and a pencil and one is ready.

I like poems that are complex.