Colm Toibin Quotes

Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.

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

My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

Poetry teaches us music, metaphor, condensation and specificity.

What has always attracted me in life is poetry. Any genre can have poetry. For me, poetry contains truth.

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

At college, I wanted to be a poet. I liked the extremely concentrated language, the atmosphere of otherworldliness.

I am a writer of fragments.

I also write poems, so that is something that I really enjoy.

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images, but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.

But poetry is my life. Poetry is what matters to me.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.

Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.