Eugenio Montale Quotes

I think poetry is the only domain where a writer you like can truly be said to influence you, because you read and reread a poem so many times that it simply drills itself into your head.

After I'd been in college for a couple years I'd read Shakespeare and Frost and Chaucer and the poets of the Harlem Renaissance. I'd come to appreciate how gorgeous the English language could be. But most fantasy novels didn't seem to make the effort.

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

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened.

The object of poetic activity is essentially language: whatever his beliefs and convictions, the poet is more concerned with words than with what these words designate.

Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem.

Everyone is not able, or inclined, to write poetry in the narrower sense any more than everyone is qualified to take part in a walking race. But just as all of us can and do walk, so all of us can and do use language poetically.

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.

Lyrical poetry is not a big part of most people's lives. Twitter now becomes an interesting way of getting cared for language into people's space. Because there is something deep inside of us that responds to cared for language, whether it's literary, poetry, or really good lyrics in a song.

Poetry seems to be the only weapon able to beat language, using language's own means.

My inspiration came especially in the 1950s through the Vienna Group founded by writer H.C. Artmann. It showed me that if you want to say something, you have to let the language itself say it, because language is usually more meaningful than the mere content that one wishes to convey.

It's true, I did write - but it's probably not as dramatic as it sounds.

Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech.

Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.

That prose is a verse, and verse is a prose; convincing all, by demonstrating plain – poetic souls delight in prose insane

Poetry is the most concentrated form of literature; it is the most emotionalized and powerful way in which thought can be presented.

Poetry is evidently a contagious complaint.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power.

Poetry -- even bad poetry -- may be our final hope.

Poetry fettered fetters the human race.

Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.

The time is right to mix sentences with dirt and the sun with punctuation and rain with verbs.