George Orwell Quotes

Poetry is fascinating. As soon as it begins the poetry has changed the thing into something extra, and somehow prose can go over into poetry.

Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things.

I've always loved rhyming. I love language.

Shaw is like a train. One just speaks the words and sits in one's place. But Shakespeare is like bathing in the sea - one swims where one wants.

I would not be able to pen an academic and dry diatribe. I have too much talent for that.

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

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it's not just typing. It takes a while to get that voice.

Poets write the words you have heard before but in a new sequence.

If you like the precision and concision of poetry, a page of prose is unsatisfying in a certain way. And poetry is so direct.

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

The cliche is dead poetry.

With a monologue, you can be unendingly elliptical.

To understand a literary style, consider what it omits.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

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.

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

I enjoy the inventive ways in which language is manipulated to make meaning.

I guess I have a weird habit of writing body part metaphors.

In my mind, there's usually a fairly definitive kind of narrative when I write. But I don't want to enforce that on other people. I think that's why I like using metaphor so much.

Metaphors are an interesting example of creating magic in prose.