Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.

I always think W.S. Merwin's poems will last of anyone writing today. If I had to bet on posterity I would bet Merwin. My poems could easily evaporate. So I don't know. If you find yourself as a writer thinking about posterity you should probably go out for a brisk walk or something.

I do them all for the money, I really do.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal, or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction, but often it's really just about the money, the perceived prestige.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

I've never chosen or rejected a role because of money.

I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

We sold 400 books of poetry and thought we were well on the way to immortality.

I think everyone that creates has to cope with the fact that people actually don't give you money because they like you, but because they get something out of it.

The more you win, the more you get paid. I'm not trying to get paid less money. I've worked too hard to get into this tax bracket.

If there's one thing I've written that could survive into posterity, I'd want that to be the poetry.

You have to write some poetry, first of all, to decide if you can become a lyricist. I was born in a family of poets.

Nobody is interested in how many claps and whistles he received for his performance. All they are bothered about is how much money they are getting.

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

I write poems for myself and I write poetry that gets torn apart and becomes songs. I have a lot of respect for words, the power of words.

Here's the way the licensing works ... If you write a song, nobody can record your song before you do without your permission. But, once the song is recorded, they can get what's called a 'compulsory license', and they can record the tune, but they have to pay you royalties.

I want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry. ... Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs.

Every now and then I'll get seduced by the idea of money, and I'll take a stab at that...and I fall flat on my ass. I've never written a lasting song with that mindset. It doesn't work.

I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death.

I always think its easier for me to write without thinking about the strict meter that's required for songs and song structures and things like that. It's much easier to just write on the page.

Your motivation is your pay packet on Friday. Now get on with it.

Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.

The earnings of a poet could be reckoned by a metaphysician rather than a bookkeeper.