Knut Hamsun Quotes

I love the sound of words, the feel of them, the flow of them. I love the challenge of finding just that perfect combination of words to describe a curl of the lip, a tilt of the chin, a change in the atmosphere. Done well, novel-writing can combine lyricism with practicality in a way that makes one think of grand tapestries, both functional and beautiful. Fifty years from now, I imagine I’ll still be questing after just that right combination of words.

I was touched by the magic of music. My way to communicate was through my guitar and music.

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.

Is there no room for art in the spoken language? What is the use of creating an unnatural language to the exclusion of the natural one?

Jazz is the language of the emotions.

I make music to touch the souls of people as it's a language we all can speak.

Poetry is prose in slow motion.

To me, a poem is almost like someone whispering to another person, or you hear the whispering in your head. I hope with my own poems that the reader feels a connection, soul to soul, that'll help us all feel a little less alone on the planet. And it does have the power to direct change. A writer can make the word 'dark' be something positive. You can relieve a word like 'hysterical' of its misogynistic implications. You can make the language your own. That's what poetry is about.

I sometimes find it half a sin, To put to words the grief i feel, For words like nature,half reveal, and half conceal the soul within.

Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.

As oil will find its way into crevices where water cannot penetrate, so song will find its way where speech can no longer enter.

I read poetry every day. I love the boiled down essence of poetry. I look for poetry in prose. In a way that evocative.

Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas

I've written some poetry, but...songs have to be more poetic, and I've really gotten to this non-poetic sort of writing.

Part of what makes for good writing is an ear for what we would call the poetical. Poetry itself is another thing and it seems to me to be the most difficult writing - that those people are the best writers and they lead the way for everyone else and their writing is frighteningly great.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

The voice gets to the soul of a person more than any other instrument. Because it's the voice. It sings talks, it cries, it laughs, it squeals, it barks, it shouts it whispers, There is no other instrument that can do that. We're born with it.

Lizzie Harris's debut collection, Stop Wanting, crafts images and lines of such arresting splendor that I am very often driven to joy at the feats of beauty and healing that language is capable of bringing into being.

Poetry, far more than fiction, reveals the soul of humanity.

Art is one of the sources through which the soul expresses itself and inspires others. But to express art thoroughly, one must have the inner emotions opened thoroughly.

The advice I continually give to young writers is this, "Learn to paint pictures with words." Not just once upon a time, but ... In the long secret dust of ages, beneath a blue forgotten sky, where trade winds caress the sun bleached shores of unknown realms ... See, as much as there are words in poetry, there is a poetry in words. Use it, stay faithful to the path you have set your heart upon and follow it.

I believe that only poetry counts ... A great novelist is first of all a great poet.

What cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart.