Prose Quotes

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.

I want prose fiction to be recognized as that, and I'm not interested in writing as it becomes more personal.

I think Maus I is better than Maus II. The standard here is whether or not it's as good as a great book of prose literature and by that standard, no, it's not that great.

It was an instinct to put the world in order that powered her mending split infinitives and snipping off dangling participles, smoothing away the knots and bumps until the prose before her took on a sheen, like perfect caramel.

I want my prose to be as clear as a pane of glass.

To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!

In the plays - that's where I go crazy. But my prose has a much lighter touch; it's not trying to thrill with language, just to be more truthful. I'm not concerned with the accuracy of anything. We don't get to the truth of anything with facts.

My prose is turgid, it just hasn't got any energy.

There is something about poetry beyond prose logic, there is mystery in it, not to be explained but admired.

And write what you love - don't feel pressured to write serious prose if what you like is to be funny.

I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.

When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture.

What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose.

The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose.

A probing analysis of the problems of evolution forms the basis of my prose.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

The human brain can soften as a result of incessant listening to music with an intent to commit prose.

The poet gives us his essence, but prose takes the mold of the body and mind.

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

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

There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

It is a way we reassess our past. We can do that in poetry in ways we can't do in prose.

That poetry survived in its formal agencies finally, and that prose survived to get something said.

The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.

A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.

There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong.