A Quote by Andrew Motion

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

Andrew Motion

Quote Topics

Allow Altogether Association Behind Being Conversations Dismantle Does Doors Else Family Good Laureate Miss Nothing Open Open Door Open Doors Poet Poet Laureate Poetry Role Royal Royal Family Say Should Thing Those Tradition Trick Wallets Way Weight Would

Quote Author

Andrew Motion
English - Novelist
Born: October 26, 1952

Just keep asking questions. Does this job allow me to be myself? Does it make me smarter? Does it open doors? Does it represent a compromise I accept? Does it touch my inner being?

Suzy Welch

That's one of those questions that would just love to have a pat answer. You know, poetry's job is to make us feel good. Poetry exists to allow us to express our innermost feelings. There isn't one role for poetry in society. There are many roles for poetry. I wrote a poem to seduce my wife. I wrote a poem when I asked her to marry me. Poetry got me laid. Poetry got me married.

Sam Hamill

If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.

Henry David Thoreau

Though the blame cannot be placed entirely on publishers, I do think a more diverse pool of editors would go a long way toward broadening the perspective. Our role is to work together to create books that act as wide-open doors - books that allow all children to walk through and feel safe enough to stay.

Jerry Pinkney

The important thing for me is that one accepts that one is irretrievably flawed and as you say, takes responsibility for those flaws, rather than hiding them in some code that allows "this" and doesn't allow "that" as if there were a way of being sure of how to be good in the world.

Andre Alexis

For, were it not good that evil things should also exist, the omnipotent God would almost certainly not allow evil to be, since beyond doubt it is just as easy for Him not to allow what He does not will, as for Him to do what He will.

Saint Augustine

The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more strictly compelling.

Lascelles Abercrombie

I would always say to anyone, you make choices that are important to you. Don't allow yourself to be exploited by something as fleeting as fame and fortune. If you're presenting yourself in a way that important to you in communicating your vision, then so be it. No one should allow themselves to be exploited ever.

Patti Smith

Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.

Ambrose Bierce

There wasn't much white people would allow us to do in those days. You could be a schoolteacher or an athlete to get away from the manual labor and servant-type jobs, but there wasn't much else they were going to allow you [to] do.

Hank Aaron

The role of design at a company is to allow you to recreate yourself, to allow your company to find a new way of success before the old way fails.

Mark Parker

In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet…There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter…And each line has to end with a rigid pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet…But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants…You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

Madeleine L'Engle

Virtues are in the middle, the royal way about which the saintly elder (Saint Basil the Great) said, "Travel on the royal way and count the miles." As I said, the virtues are at the midpoint between excess and laxness. That is why it is written, "Do not turn to the right or the left" (Prov 4:27) but travel on the "royal way" (Num. 20:17). Saint Basil also says, "The person who does not allow his thoughts to incline towards excess or deprivation but directs it to the midpoint, that of virtue, is upright in heart."

Dorotheus of Gaza

You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering, that’s the sad truth. Maybe they’ll break your heart, maybe you’ll break their heart and never be able to look at yourself in the same way. Those are the risks. You see two people and you think they belong together, but nothing happens. The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable. That’s the burden. Like wings, they have weight, we feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us. Burdens that allow us to fly.