Laura Nyro Quotes

The kind of poetry I write, lyric poetry, I think is really concerned with intimacy, with mystery. That needn't be religious mystery, there are mysteries to do with everyday life.

Poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any linguistic operation.

Sometimes words are not needed, and the simplicity of expressing yourself through an art form is one of the best ways of communication.

In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

A lot of people feel that the realm of poetry and the realm of the lyric is personal feeling and should rise above politics, which, in fact, good poetry has never done.

Art is the skin of the soul.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

…only a poet could frame a language that could frame a world.

Poetry isn't an activity, it's a way life is lived.

Art after all is but an extension of language to the expression of sensations too subtle for words.

It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely, that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time.

A way of using words to say things which could not possibly be said in any other way, things which in a sense do not exist till they are born … in poetry.

Music gets us in touch with our emotions in a way that's more intimate than any other art form.

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.

Often with good sentiments we produce bad literature.

Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.

The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.

Poems aren't postcards to send home.

I love to write when I feel like everybody else is asleep and when I feel like the world is kind of empty in some ways. I find, oddly enough, that I write about loneliness and isolation a lot.

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

Poetry increases the feeling for reality.

I don't think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language.

Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.