quotes from classic

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

more quotes from Howard Nemerov

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

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The first step... shall be to lose the way.

more quotes from Galway Kinnell

Never mind. The self is the least of it. Let our scars fall in love.

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Es tan corto el amor, y tan largo el olvido.

more quotes from Pablo Neruda

A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn't play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.

more quotes from Pablo Neruda

The Night in Isla Negra

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Es tan corto el amor, y tan largo el olvido. (Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.)

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A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.

more quotes from Pablo Neruda

The word was born in the blood, grew in the dark body, beating, and took flight through the lips and the mouth. Farther away and nearer still, still it came from dead fathers and from wondering races, from lands which had turned to stone, lands weary of their poor tribes, for when grief took to the roads the people set out and arrived and married new land and water to grow their words again. And so this is the inheritance; this is the wavelength which connects us with dead men and the dawning of new beings not yet come to light.

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We have been friends together in sunshine and in shade.

more quotes from Caroline Norton

Silent companions of the lonely hour, Friends, who can never alter or forsake, Who for inconstant roving have no power, And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take,-- Let me return to you; this turmoil ending Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought, And, o'er your old familiar pages bending, Refresh my mind with many a tranquil thought: Till, haply meeting there, from time to time, Fancies, the audible echo of my own, 'Twill be like hearing in a foreign clime My native language spoke in friendly tone, And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell On these, my unripe musings, told so well.

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My beautiful, my beautiful! That standest meekly by, with thy proudly-arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye!

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In the cold change which time hath wrought on love (The snowy winter of his summer prime), Should a chance sigh or sudden tear-drop move Thy heart to memory of the olden time; Turn not to gaze on me with pitying eyes, Nor mock me with a withered hope renewed; But from the bower we both have loved, arise And leave me to my barren solitude! What boots it that a momentary flame Shoots from the ashes of a dying fire? We gaze upon the hearth from whence it came, And know the exhausted embers must expire: Therefore no pity, or my heart will break; Be cold, be careless--for thy past love's sake!

more quotes from Caroline Norton

Oh, the brave Music of a distant drum!

more quotes from Omar Khayyám

'Tis all a Checker-board of Nights and days where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates and slays, and one by one back in the Closet lays.

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The thoughtful soul to solitude retires.

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Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

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You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse I made a Second Marriage in my house; favored old barren reason from my bed, and took the daughter of the vine to spouse.

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Living Life Tomorrow's fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again.

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