Lyrical Prose Quotes

Prose is walking; poetry is flying

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.

I love the sound of words, the feel of them, the flow of them. I love the challenge of finding just that perfect combination of words to describe a curl of the lip, a tilt of the chin, a change in the atmosphere. Done well, novel-writing can combine lyricism with practicality in a way that makes one think of grand tapestries, both functional and beautiful. Fifty years from now, I imagine I’ll still be questing after just that right combination of words.

Remember picture books are the closest form of writing to a poem. Even though they don't have to rhyme, they must be poetic. They must be written so the worst actress can read with comfort and expression.

I believe that only poetry counts ... A great novelist is first of all a great poet.

Language must resound with all the harmonies of music. The writer must always, at all times, find the tremulous word which captures the thing and is able to draw a sob from my soul by its very rightness.

I rely heavily on rhythm when I write. You should tap your foot when you read it, all the way through.

I'm no lyrical stylist; you wouldn't pick me for a perfect sentence, and I certainly wouldn't describe my novels as intellectual.

Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness.

I read poetry every day. I love the boiled down essence of poetry. I look for poetry in prose. In a way that evocative.

I lost many literary battles the day I read 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical.

A lot of time, I'd spell things in standard English instead of phonetically because I want people to understand what's going on. It's also very lyrical, and the great thing about lyrical prose is even when you're not totally sure of the words, you can be swayed by the musicality of it.

With James Reese’s vivid and chilling novel, readers will gain a whole new appreciation of two gothic landmarks, Dracula and Jack the Ripper. Not only does The Dracula Dossier grip us with its fast paced hunt for history’s most notorious killer, it also enchants us with sophisticated and lyrical recreations of its unique period and strong characters. A daring achievement.

I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot.

I mean, there's an aspect I've always said that is - it's, you know, it's not poetry but it's kind of like it. It's not song lyrics but it's kind of like song lyrics. It's not rap but it's kind of like rap. And it's not stand-up comedy but it is kind of like stand-up comedy. It's all those things together.

Well-written words are music.

I've written some poetry, but...songs have to be more poetic, and I've really gotten to this non-poetic sort of writing.

I read a lot of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love 'Tender is the Night,' and its atmosphere of doomed romance. He was one of the greatest prose stylists, with a wonderfully clear but lyrical quality.

Part of what makes for good writing is an ear for what we would call the poetical. Poetry itself is another thing and it seems to me to be the most difficult writing - that those people are the best writers and they lead the way for everyone else and their writing is frighteningly great.

Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones.

Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song.