Peter Davison Quotes

Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.

As a person... I'm a little more doubtful, introspective and analytical.

Many poets, as you know, are not good readers.

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.

I question everything I do.

One of the goals of analysis is you become your own analyst. You continue the process even if you're not in therapy, whether you continue the process by walking down the street thinking about things or whether you continue the process, as I do, by writing about them.

I have epiphanies all the time, because I'm always thinking. I'm a thinker. I'm always writing poetry, I'm always coming to conclusions.

A good poem looks life straight in the face, unflinching, sincere, equal to revelation through loss or gain.

As a young man, Yeats spoke to me in a way I could understand. Shakespeare I couldn't understand, but Yeats I could. It was his subject matter and also I really admired the way he put his personal life on the line.

There is no country in the world where the process of self-criticism and self-correction is more active than in the United States.

Doubt is crucial, I think, in every character I have ever played.

The greatest texts, I think, first dazzle, then with careful rereading, they instruct. I have learned from Virginia Woolf more than I even know how to articulate.

I've never been great at being really analytical about myself.

Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I'm a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?

In much of computer science, I can easily 'auto-grade' your work and give you an instant meaningful feedback. I can't do this when it comes to the subtlety of human thought, language, poetry, philosophy.

I was an English major at Brown. I never enjoyed history classes.

I start asking a lot of questions about my own life, and it's not necessarily fun, but it's a good exercise.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

I'm the greatest critic of my work.

I'm big on watching film, and sometimes it hurts myself because I over-calculate things, or I overthink sometimes.

So the best way to understand poetry, which is made by men, is to imitate, and that goes back to making work as a kind of doorway into new work, as opposed to making work as a mirror of the old work.

I like literature, not opinions. I hate opinions.

It is always good to self-analyse and be self-critical. That is how I've got through so far and improved.

I analyse everything I do and when I see something I don't like I try to find the solution and that's why I'm so hard on myself.