Billy Collins Quotes

I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it's easy to criticize something you can understand.

It makes you vulnerable to win an award. It's nice to get the attention, but your neck is stuck out.

I always feel terrified whenever I put my work out there to be seen, to be scrutinized. I think it's a very vulnerable thing that we are asked to do.

You put yourself in the public eye. You're kind of an open target.

...available people are the ones who are dangerous, because they confront us with the possibility of real intimacy.

If you do put yourself out there and do things that are not safe, then you run the risk of being criticized for it.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.

Too many poets write poems which are only difficult on the surface, difficult because the dramatic situation is easily misunderstood. It's not difficult to write poems that are misunderstood. A drunk, a three-year-old-they are easily misunderstood. What is difficult is being clear and mysterious at the same time. The dramatic situation needs to be as clear in a poem as it is in a piece of good journalism. The why is part of the mystery, but the who, what, where, and when should all be understood.

Those who think themselves secure are more exposed to danger than any others. The armor-bearer of sin is self-confidence .

You know what they say, the high trees get the wind.

I always felt like hanging around the pocket was trouble, but the truth is, the great players take the beatings in the pocket and expose themselves -- and that is the real risk.

Longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it.

if you think it so easy to be a critic, so difficult to be a poet or a painter or film experimenter, may I suggest you try both? You may discover why there are so few critics, so many poets.

But I think if it's the right person, you wouldn't have to work so hard at intimacy. I think—hope—it would just happen naturally. Otherwise, opening up to the wrong person..." I made a face. "Like putting ammo in their hands.

We all get intimidated by showing ourselves, for whatever reason, we think, If I really show who I am, and someone goes [pfftt] then it's gonna crush me. Well, it's not gonna crush me. It doesn't crush you if somebody does that- somebody will do that. Many times. And once you accept that that's not why you're doing it, you're doing it because that's your form of expression.

Eventually we realize that not knowing what to do is just as real and just as useful as knowing what to do. Not knowing stops us from taking false directions. Not knowing what to do, we start to pay real attention. Just as people lost in the wilderness, on a cliff face or in a blizzard pay attention with a kind of acuity that they would not have if they thought they knew where they were. Why? Because for those who are really lost, their life depends on paying real attention. If you think you know where you are, you stop looking.

The only one taking a risk here is me, if I get too attached to you. It’s not risky for you, as long as you’re not confused either.” “I’m not.” “Of course you aren’t.” A small smile played on Balthazar’s lips.

I like being at that place where you can either fall or stand. That's where I think you really have a shot at doing something truthful.

The risk that is involved in trusting is stepping forth with willingness with a knowing that you can lose something or fail, and doing it anyways

There's this quote by a writer, Emil Cioran, he's a Romanian writer. He says that you should only put things in books that you would never dare to say to people in real life. So there is that feeling of acute embarrassment, or that you've been too revealing. I think it's some kind of survival mechanism where I never think of the reader, ever. Because then I would start censoring myself.

Rockabye Baby, in the treetop Dont you know a treetop is no safe place to rock? And who put you up there, and your cradle too? Baby, I think someone down here has got it in for you!

I don't talk to everybody, so they don't really know the real me. I don't think anybody will.

I still think about the time when I was fighting for my first real big fight against [Marco Antonio] Barrera back in 2002. I know he can come in thinking that he has nothing to lose, and that's why I have to be aware of that.Always be prepared.

Criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.

I wish I could say confidently that pacing remains my weak point, if you could talk about your own stuff without sounding like you're self-obsessed. But I think you kind of have to be.