Brendan Gill Quotes

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.

I would not be able to pen an academic and dry diatribe. I have too much talent for that.

Poetry is fascinating. As soon as it begins the poetry has changed the thing into something extra, and somehow prose can go over into poetry.

Poetry had far better imply things than preach them directly... in the open pulpit her voice grows hoarse and fails.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

Metaphor is not just the detection of patterns; it is the creation of patterns.

Lyrics need to be good, but they don't need to be obvious right away.

Elizabeth Bishop in particular had a big impact on me personally as well as artistically. Her insistence on clarity is something I rate very highly.

Word - that invisible dagger.

I'm not a fast, stream-of-consciousness lyricist at all - I know some guys who are, and if there is one skill I wish I had, it's that.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

To understand a literary style, consider what it omits.

Shaw is like a train. One just speaks the words and sits in one's place. But Shakespeare is like bathing in the sea - one swims where one wants.

Keats writes better about poems than anybody I've ever read. The things that he says about what he wants his own poems to be are the ideals that I share.

I was 15 when I first became deeply touched by the rhythm and structure of words.

When you are trying to express things with metaphors and much more subtlety, that's when you are doing yourself a disservice by making a video.

Really, subtlety is what is really important to me and my work.

The poem is itself a mirror.

I'm only interested in poetry.

Innovation is fostered by information gathered from new connections; from insights gained by journeys into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial networks and fluid, open boundaries. Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange, where information is not just accumulated or stored, but created. Knowledge is generated anew from connections that weren't there before.

A true masterpiece does not tell everything.

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

I prefer to regard a dessert as I would imagine the perfect woman: subtle, a little bittersweet, not blowsy and extrovert. Delicately made up, not highly rouged. Holding back, not exposing everything and, of course, with a flavor that lasts.

Internet has been really amazing, and I think it's a place of great passion, creativity, and knowledge.

Data is what distinguishes the dilettante from the artist