Ben Lerner Quotes

I know my voice has a limited range of motion; I don't write dramatic monologues and pretend to be other people. But so far, my voice is broad enough to accommodate most of what I want to put into my poetry. I like my persona; I often wish I were him and not me.

There are things which some people never attempt during their whole lives, but one of these is not poetry. Poetry attacks all human beings sooner or later, and, like the measles, is mild or violent according to the age of the sufferer.

To be a poet did not occur to me. It was indeed a threshold guarded by demons.

There is a kind of poetry, bad and good, in evrything, everywhere we look.

Writing itself is a bad enough trade, rightly held up to ridicule and contempt by the greater part of mankind, and especially by those who do real work, plowing, riding, sailing

I don't think music is my job - I don't think about it that way, because I don't really get paid. There's not paycheck at the end; it's more of a "whatever is left over" kind of situation. Also, it keeps me from thinking about my creativity as a business, which it is not. It should remain pure; that's one of the reasons I made music in the first place.

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.

Art is one of the dirtiest words in our language; it's mucked up with all kinds of meanings. There's the art of plumbing; there's the art of almost anything that you can say.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.

Poets are simply those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss.

Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense.

Whatever I was writing at the time, I knew there was no market for it and never would be, because there’s never a market for true art, so my main concern was always to have a job that didn’t require me to write or think.

One day, I will be a poet. Water will depend on my visions.

Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.

By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing - which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring.

Natural emotion is the soul of poetry, as melody is of music; the same faults are engendered by over-study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible impulse in both the poet and the, composer.

The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer.

Now begins to rise in me the familiar rhythm; words that have lain dormant now lift, now toss their crests, and fall and rise, and falls again. I am a poet, yes. Surely I am a great poet.

No, I'm not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet.

Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.

whether they write poems or don't write poems, poets are best.

To be an artist is not about fame; it's about art, which is this intangible thing that has got to have lots of integrity, whereas being famous doesn't really take any integrity. But I think you have to admit that you want to be famous, otherwise you can't be an artist. Art and fame together are like a desire to live forever.

Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense (Spence, Anecdotes

There's obviously always danger in making music or art for art's sake. Even as Christians we can be guilty of that, being more about the art than the Artist who gave us this gift.