To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.

Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know.

The poets of each generation seldom sing a new song. They turn to themes men always have loved, and sing them in the mode of their times.

Poetry's unnat'ral; no man ever talked poetry 'cept a beadle on boxin' day.

Poetry is a counterfeit creation, and makes things that are not, as though they were.

All good poetry is forged slowly and patiently, link by link, with sweat and blood and tears.

Maturing as a poet means maturing as the whole man, experiencing new emotions appropriate to one's age, and with the same intensity as the emotions of youth.

The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.