Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
-Jean Cocteau
Quotations
Poet
A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
-Jay Z
"Decoded"
The worst fate of a poet is to be admired without being understood.
-Jean Cocteau
"Le Rappel á l'ordre"
The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.
-Jane Kenyon
Always be a poet, even in prose.
-Charles Baudelaire
If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average.
-Derek Walcott
Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.
-Alfred De Musset
"Le Poète déchu"
Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
-T. S. Eliot
"Dante"
A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.
-Criss Jami
