quotes from classic

Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield.

more quotes from Billy Collins

Listeners are kind of ambushed... if a poem just happens to be said when they're listening to the radio. The listener doesn't have time to deploy what I call their 'poetry deflector shields' that were installed in high school - there's little time to resist the poem.

more quotes from Billy Collins

There is in true beauty, as in courage, something which narrow souls cannot dare to admire.

more quotes from William Congreve

Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.

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I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.

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Never go to bed angry, stay up and fight.

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I know that's a secret, for it's whispered every where.

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Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

more quotes from William Congreve

No, I'm no enemy to learning; it hurts not me.

more quotes from William Congreve

Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.

more quotes from William Congreve

A little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring.

more quotes from William Congreve

They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week.

more quotes from William Congreve

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.

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If this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable.

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Beauty is the lover's gift.

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Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.

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I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.

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If there's delight in love, 'Tis when I see that heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.

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A wit should be no more sincere than a woman constant.

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Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.

more quotes from William Congreve