Andrew Motion Quotes

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do.

I just want people to remember me a hundred years from now. I don't care that they're not able to quote any single line that I've written. But just that they can say, "Oh, he was a writer." That's sufficiently an honored position for me.

Years from now, after I'm gone, someone will listen to what I've done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they'll hear my guitars speaking for me.

The idea that I wrote something that stood for the way I feel about things, and that it lasts, that's probably my favorite thing that I've done.

Films and gramophone records, music, books and buildings show clearly how vigorously a man's life and work go on after his 'death,' whether we feel it or not, whether we are aware of the individual names or not. There is no such thing as death according to our view!

The reward of great men is that, long after they have died, one is not quite sure that they are dead.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

If somebody wants to sing my songs after I'm gone, nobody will be happier than my dead body.

Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest; when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives.

If fame is to come only after death, I am in no hurry for it.

Men's fame is like their hair, which grows after they are dead, and with just as little use to them.

Audiences aren't going to get rid of me. One thing I can say, with absolute certainty, is that my shows will still be performed when I'm dead, buried and forgotten. They're going to absolutely outlive me, which is a wonderful thing to think about.

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do. I don't wanna get ideas above my station, but why shouldn't this be comparable? Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later, and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important.

You want all your books to stick around after you've gone.

Seldom comes Glory till a man be dead.

When I write a book, I hope to be beyond mortal by the time I'm finished.

Ultimately, what I want is for my songs to outlive me: I want my songs to keep being played even after I'm gone.

I always think W.S. Merwin's poems will last of anyone writing today. If I had to bet on posterity I would bet Merwin. My poems could easily evaporate. So I don't know. If you find yourself as a writer thinking about posterity you should probably go out for a brisk walk or something.

I try to give my work everything I've got, because when you're dead or you're out of the business or you're in an old actors' home somewhere, if you've done a good job, your work will still be 16 years old and dancing and healthy and pirouetting and arabesquing all over the place. And they'll say, "That's who he is! He's not this decaying skeleton."

The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die.

I could care less about ever having a No. 1 single. I would just like to be able to play and have people who grow old with you, and you stay with them through their life. We've got a few sentences, maybe, to say what life's about. Hopefully, we'll get a chapter later.

Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.

I have spoken, and I was understood. It's not like I'm a tragic person who wasn't understood. All those books are in print, all those movies are still out there, the audience gets younger. So I don't have that "I've got to do one thing before I die." I did it.

It would be nice if I was remembered at all. I don't really care about being remembered. I just want to enjoy my life today and do my best while I'm here. I'm not that ambitious, other than to have a good life now.

Men always want to be remembered whereas women realize that requires being dead.