I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

I could talk all day, T stands for talking, T stands for tender, T stands for things that don’t even rhyme with T.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ‚tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

I think I can keep a rhythm to a beat, but there are quite a few people who would argue with me.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

They might not need me; but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

I think a poet is anybody who wouldn’t call himself a poet.

I know some people might think it odd – unworthy even – for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people’s poet so I write for the people.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

On the subject of literary genres, I’ve always felt that my response to poetry is inadequate. I’d love to be the kind of person that drifts off into the garden with a slim volume of Elizabethan verse or a sheaf of haikus, but my passion is story.

But time has set its maggot on their track.

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

I create stars.

When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born.

Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life.

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

I went on all over the States, ranting poems to enthusiastic audiences that, the week before, had been equally enthusiastic about lectures on Railway Development or the Modern Turkish Essay.

I’ve often made revisions at that stage that turned out to be mistakes because I wasn’t really in the rhythm of the story anymore. I see a little bit of writing that doesn’t seem to be doing as much work as it should be doing, and right at the end, I will sort of rev it up. But when I finally read the story again, it seems a bit obtrusive.

Everybody’s got that split between the beautiful and fragile, the hard and the dark.

I’ve been writing poems since I was in the Navy – to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.

The coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kind in America, or indeed the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of species assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on.

You’re beautiful, like a May fly.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

When I was a seminarian, I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle’s wedding. I was surprised by her beauty, her intellectual brilliance… and, well, I was bowled over for quite a while.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever.

In judging of a beautiful statue, the aesthetic faculty is absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are powerless to help us.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.

A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it’s there complete in the mind, if only at the back.

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.