Robert Graves Quotes

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

Gradually I find that my whole soul is merging itself into this business of writing, and especially of writing poetry. I am going to try it; and am going to test, in the most rigid way I know, the awful question whether it is my vocation.

I don't think anybody is a poet 24/7, only in those rare moments when a person is producing a poem.

Poets are born, not paid.

Well, I still write poetry, but I wouldn't call myself a poet.

The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet.

Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.

I gave my voice to poetry.

Could I have chosen my own genius, I should have made myself a great poet.

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm / Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed / That my own soul has to itself decreed.

To the poet fated to be a poet, self-expression is as natural and as involuntary as breathing is to us ordinary mortals.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it.

I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.

I'm a writer who just happens to draw.

To be a great actor you just need to comprehend, so that's why I became a writer.

The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.

Maybe I'm a dream artist, as they call it.

There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman.

I'm an artistic person and a creator. I'm not a scientific. I'm not an engineer.

Daydreaming is one of the key sources of poetry - a poem often starts as a daydream that finds its way into language - and walking seems to bring a different sort of alertness, an associative kind of thinking, a drifting state of mind.

The difference between a top-flight creative man and the hack is his ability to express powerful meanings indirectly.

I always knew that I was tremendously creative. I recited love poems, I wrote stories and I got excellent grades in every subject, except for maths.

A born poet knows in his cradle that a poetic life is the only life worth living.

I don't think of myself as an artist. I'm just a guy who can write.