Quotes

Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for.
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), French author, filmmaker. Quoted in: Ernst Fischer, The Necessity of Art, ch. 1 (1959).
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
Denis Diderot (1713–84), French philosopher. On Dramatic Poetry (1758; repr. in Selected Writings, ed. by Lester G. Crocker, 1966).
Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.
Robert Fitzgerald (1910–85), U.S. scholar, translator. Writers at Work (Eighth Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1988).
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
Robert Frost (1874–1963), U.S. poet. Address, 17 May 1935, Milton Academy, Mass.
Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.
Robert Frost (1874–1963), U.S. poet. Quoted in: Elizabeth S. Sergeant, Robert Frost: the Trial by Existence, ch. 18 (1960).
If there’s no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money.
Robert Graves (1895–1985), British poet, novelist. Speech, 6 Dec. 1963, London School of Economics.
Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.
Adrian Mitchell (b. 1932), British poet, author. Epigraph to Poems (1964).
Poetry, that is to say the poetic, is a primal necessity.
Marianne Moore (1887–1972), U.S. poet. “Comment,” in Dial, no. 81 (New York, Aug. 1926; repr. in Complete Prose, 1987).
Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.
Joseph Roux (1834–86), French priest, writer. Meditations of a Parish Priest, pt. 1, no. 76 (1886).
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
Voltaire (1694–1778), French philosopher, author. Dictionnaire Philosophique, “Poets” (1764).