No poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it.
-W. H. Auden
"The Dyer's Hand"
Quotations
Poet
Heaven deliver us, what's a poet? Something that can't go to bed without making a song about it.
-Dorothy L. Sayers
"Busman's Honeymoon"
He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.
-George Sand
The worst fate of a poet is to be admired without being understood.
-Jean Cocteau
"Le Rappel á l'ordre"
I don't create poetry, I create myself, for me my poems are a way to me.
-Edith Södergran
The poet is much more the one who inspires, than the one who is inspired.
-Paul Éluard
Not everyone who drinks is a poet. Some of us drink because we're not poets.
-Dudley Moore
Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
-Jean Cocteau
Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows.
-Edmund Burke
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
-Jean Cocteau
