Quotes by Poets

All things come round to him who will but wait.

Is life worth living? Aye with the best of us Heights of us depths of us- Life is the test of us!

Here we have a baby. It is composed of a bald head and a pair of lungs.

Sadly, it is within the religious domain that the phenomenon of rhetorical hysteria takes its most devastating form. I am aware that, in some minds, this tends to be regarded as a delicate subject. Let me declare very simply that I do not share such a sentiment. There is nothing in the least delicate about the slaughter of innocents. We all subscribe to the lofty notions contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but, for some reason, become suddenly coy and selective when it comes to defending what is obviously the most elementary of these rights, which is the right to life. One of my all-time favourite lines comes from the black American poet Langston Hughes. It reads, simply, 'There is no lavender word for lynch'.

Wole Soyinka

So I draw because I feel like it might be my only real chance to escape the reservation.

Sherman Alexie

a generation:the black night gave me black eyesstill I use them to seek the light

Gu Cheng

A lucky man is rarer than a white crow.

Juvenal

Tis time to die, when 'tis a shame to live.

Thomas Middleton

She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the rest. And me. I was the main ingredient.

Barbara Kingsolver

Only those who will love longer than they expected to can truly love pecan pie, which doesn't explain its status as death rows most requested last dessert, or why chopped pecans, corn syrup, directions from the Karo bottle's cherry-red side are what mercy taste like to some. But there you have it.

Kate Lebo

Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at the time, that he may wonder at them; so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed ages that fled.

Charles Mackay

It's the giving that makes one stronger, but sometimes the taking can make one weaker, if even vulnerable or blinding.

Anthony Liccione

And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I slept so long and hard that when my mother woke me the next morning I was a stranger to myself.

Lauren Wolk

It's simple,' Kat told them. 'You bombard them with images of what they ought to be, and you make them feel grotty for being the way they are. You're working with the gap between reality and perception. That's why you have to hit them with something new, something they've never seen before, something they aren't. Nothing sells like anxiety.

Margaret Atwood

To be strong does not mean to sprout muscles and flex. It means meeting one's own numinosity without fleeing, actively living with the wild nature in one's own way. It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Let us not fear our wild thoughts for they can give rise to wondrous contemplation, creative endeavour, life changing ideas, momentous bliss.

Jay Woodman

My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight.Her hands asleep beside her.Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth.I give her my lifefor our love is wholeI sing her beauty in my soul.

Roman Payne

Last night I danced. My body rose from its slump for the first time since the beginning of sorrows—my fingers beckoning to the stars at arm's length, back arching as tingles bubbled up my spine, hips caught in a silent tempo while on tiptoe I twirled in endless euphoric circles. It didn't matter that you loved me or that you didn't. For I was wanted by the gods last night, their seraphs and muses descending on moonbeams into my midst, caressing my face and gliding their spirited arms about my waist, lifting my toes from the soil that I might feel what it is to fly without heaviness of heart. I danced with them under the glow of a loyal moon. For one brief, visceral dance I joyed as Heaven joys—in endless bliss.And the universe cherished me.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Westward on the high-hilled plainsWhere for me the world began, Still, I think, in newer veinsFrets the changeless blood of man....There, when hueless is the westAnd the darkness hushes wide,Where the lad lies down to restStands the troubled dream beside.There, on thoughts that once were mine,Day looks down the eastern steep,And the youth at morning shineMakes the vow he will not keep.

A.E. Housman

As the soil of a garden is richer and as the harvest of the garden bears healthier nourishment from the decay of leaf matter and banana peel and egg shell and human hair and chicken bone and fireplace ash, so the accumulation of death in teh ground of a city implants therein energies and powers.

Tim Gilmore

Stars ink your fingerswith a lexicon of flameblazing rare knowledge.

Aberjhani

No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to remind myself what an asshole I was?

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Oh what marvels fill me with thanksgiving!The deep mahogany of a leaf once green. The feathered fronds of tiny icicles coating every twig and branch in a wintry landscape. The feel of goosebumps thawing after endured frozen temperatures. Both hands clamped around a hot mug of herbal tea. The aromatic whiff of mint under my nose. The stir of emotion from a child's cry for mommy. A gift of love detached of strings. Spotted lilies collecting raindrops in a cupped clump of petals. The vibrant mélange of colors on butterfly wings. The milky luster of a single pearl. Rainbows reflecting off iridescence bubbles. Awe-struck silence evoked by any form of beauty.Avocado flecks in your eyes.Warm hands on my face.Sweetness on the tongue.The harmony of voices.An answered prayer.A pink balloon.A caress.A smile.More.These have become my treasures by virtue of thanksgiving.

Richelle E. Goodrich

I sat up in the strange bed fearing it had been a dream, afraid I would never see her again. Not because I wanted anything from her, only her presence. The disappearance of the presence of beauty is the most despairing of events on this time-wheel of ours that rolls onward towards death.

Roman Payne

Our power comes from the earth

Luis Alberto Urrea

Now come the whispersbearing bouquets of moonbeamsand sunlight tremblings.

Aberjhani

I wanted to close my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

I stumble and fall.I weep and struggle to rise.My mom feels it all.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Up the still, glistening beaches,Up the creeks we will hie,Over banks of bright seaweedThe ebb-tide leaves dry.We will gaze, from the sand-hills,At the white, sleeping town;At the church on the hill-side—And then come back down.Singing: "There dwells a loved one,But cruel is she!She left lonely for everThe kings of the sea.(from poem 'The Forsaken Merman')

Matthew Arnold

Capture your youth, while you can.

Anthony Liccione

At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink, But 'tis a nobler privilege to think.

John Godfrey Saxe

In the short run, technology many be more efficient than man, but it will never be perfect. Every piece of equipment will eventually reveal an error code. In the long run, man will never be perfect, but prove to be more reliable than technology.

Suzy Kassem

The dancing vortex of a sacred metaphor clashes horns and halos to make wounded music set to the tempo of a new era in brilliant labor.

Aberjhani

Your own guilt is your own fault.

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.

Criss Jami

Do not feel sad for your tears as rocks never regret the waterfalls

Munia Khan

A thin man can squeeze into a fat body, yet you can only squeeze a fat man to become thin

Benny Bellamacina

...while epic fantasy is based on the fairy tale of the just war, that’s not one you’ll find in Grimm or Disney, and most will never recognize the shape of it. I think the fantasy genre pitches its tent in the medieval campground for the very reason that we even bother to write stories about things that never happened in the first place: because it says something subtle and true about our own world, something it is difficult to say straight out, with a straight face. Something you need tools to say, you need cheat codes for the human brain--a candy princess or a sugar-coated unicorn to wash down the sour taste of how bad things can really get.See, I think our culture has a slash running through the middle of it, too. Past/Future, Conservative/Liberal, Online/Offline. Virgin/Whore. And yes: Classical/Medieval. I think we’re torn between the Classical Narrative of Self and the Medieval Narrative of Self, between the choice of Achilles and Keep Calm and Carry On.The Classical internal monologue goes like this: do anything, anything, only don’t be forgotten. Yes, this one sacrificed his daughter on a slab at Aulis, that one married his mother and tore out his eyes, and oh that guy ate his kids in a pie. But you remember their names, don’t you? So it’s all good in the end. Give a Greek soul a choice between a short life full of glory and a name echoing down the halls of time and a long, gentle life full of children and a quiet sort of virtue, and he’ll always go down in flames. That’s what the Iliad is all about, and the Odyssey too. When you get to Hades, you gotta have a story to tell, because the rest of eternity is just forgetting and hoping some mortal shows up on a quest and lets you drink blood from a bowl so you can remember who you were for one hour.And every bit of cultural narrative in America says that we are all Odysseus, we are all Agamemnon, all Atreus, all Achilles. That we as a nation made that choice and chose glory and personal valor, and woe betide any inconvenient “other people” who get in our way. We tell the tales around the campfire of men who came from nothing to run dotcom empires, of a million dollars made overnight, of an actress marrying a prince from Monaco, of athletes and stars and artists and cowboys and gangsters and bootleggers and talk show hosts who hitched up their bootstraps and bent the world to their will. Whose names you all know. And we say: that can be each and every one of us and if it isn’t, it’s your fault. You didn’t have the excellence for it. You didn’t work hard enough. The story wasn’t about you, and the only good stories are the kind that have big, unignorable, undeniable heroes.

Catherynne M. Valente

Live in Thorns but always enchant the hearts with your fragrance

Alok Jagawat

A poem is a ‘line’ between any two points in creation.

Charles Olson

You want to become a better person?Just give thanks. Give thanks for all of it.

Kamand Kojouri

If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him.

Criss Jami

We ache with the yearningthat turns half into wholeand offer no excusesfor the beauty of our souls.

Aberjhani

Let us remember to always rediscover one anotherbecause we are forever changing.

Kamand Kojouri

I like the idea of differenttheres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,a Bronx where people talklike violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehowkind, perhaps in the nookof a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayedanyone.

Bob Hicok

Imprisoned peace sets the war free

Munia Khan

People ! We stab people !" says the bayonet.But now the needle starts to laugh,and it may still be laughing yet.With ha and hee and ho ho ho."When I pierce linen, one stitch, and the another, lo—I make a shirt, a sleeve, a dress, a hem.But people you can pierce forever, what will you create from them ?"The Bayonet and the Needle

Eliezer Shtaynbarg

They can award me with the greatest accolades and reward me with the finest diamonds. They can name days and streets after me, canonise and celebrate me. They can make me the queen of their kingdom, the president of their nation. They can carry my picture in their wallets and whisper my name in their prayers but, tell me, what is all this worth if your voice isn’t the one calling me home?

Kamand Kojouri

She texted me 'I love you.'I texted back 'I love you too.'She then texted me 'I love you more.'And I smiled reading her message and texted in reply 'No, I love you more.'Then she texted me 'I love you infinity power infinity power infinity into infinity.'I had no words to reply and smiled looking at her text!

Avijeet Das

The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.

Aberjhani

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organizations, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss.

Aberjhani

There is a master way with words which is not learned but is instead developed: a deaf man develops exceptional vision, a blind man exceptional hearing, a silent man, when given a piece of paper...

Criss Jami

Music resembles poetry, in eachAre nameless graces which no methods teach,And which a master hand alone can reach.

Alexander Pope

a happy birthdaythis evening, I sat by an open windowand read till the light was gone and the bookwas no more than a part of the darkness.I could easily have switched on a lamp,but I wanted to ride the day down into night,to sit alone, and smooth the unreadable pagewith the pale gray ghost of my hand

Ted Kooser

A JEWELRY STORE NAMED INDIAIf you hold this Dazzling emeraldUp to the sky,It will shine a billion Beautiful miraclesPainted from the tearsOf the Most High.Plucked from the lush gardensOf a yellowish-green paradise,Look inside this hypnotic gemAnd a kaleidoscope of Titillating, Soul-raising Sights and colorsWill tease and seduceYour eyes and mind.Tell me, sir.Have you ever heardA peacock sing?Hold your earTo this mystical stoneAnd you will hearSacred hymns flowingTo the vibrationsOf the perfumedWind.

Suzy Kassem

I watched the spinning stars, grateful, sad and proud, as only a man who has outlived his destiny and realizes he might yet forge himself another, can be.

Roger Zelazny

Valentine's Day is the poet's holiday.

Ted Kooser

I would have followed you to hell and back... if only you'd lead me back.

Ranata Suzuki

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