A Quote by Leonard Cohen

I alwaysthought of myself as a competent, minor poet. I know who I'm up against.

Leonard Cohen

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Against Competent Know Minor Myself Poet Up

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Leonard Cohen
Canadian - Novelist
September 21, 1934 - November 7, 2016

What is competent? Who is it that can adjudicate what is competent or not competent? If the guys that are running the most important banks in our country aren't competent enough, well then, who is competent enough?

Edward Conard

Another trouble with poetry - and I'm gonna stop the list at two - is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry, the sense you get in a poem that the poet takes for granted an interest on the reader's part in the poet's autobiographical life, in the poet's memories, problems, difficulties and even minor perceptions.

Billy Collins

If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn't wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.

Donald Hall

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing Each time I find myself flat on my face I pick myself up and get back in the race

Frank Sinatra

I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.

Alice Walker

I always challenged men, you know, in foot races or whatever as a kid growing up, because it was a way of pushing myself and challenging myself against the best - but you have to know and accept that men are born with testosterone. You can beat them for so long, but eventually they’ll catch up.

Katie Uhlaender

If I could be really competent, that goes such a long way toward things, because the majority of things are not competent. If I can be competent, and have moments of originality, that's all I would ask for.

Jon Stewart

A trouble with poetry is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry, the sense you get in a poem that the poet takes for granted an interest on the reader's part in the poet's autobiographical life, in the poet's memories, problems, difficulties and even minor perceptions. I try to presume that no one is interested in me. And I think experience bears that out. No one's interested in the experiences of a stranger - let's put it that way. And then you have difficulty combined with presumptuousness, which is the most dire trouble with poetry.

Billy Collins

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.

Bob Dylan

I think of myself as a poet. I grew up with poetic influences - what I know from my background is the bardic poetry, which came down through oral tradition.

Donovan

Often the desire to appear competent impedes our ability to become competent, because we more anxious to display our knowledge than to learn what we do not know.

Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

I think that always myself is my worst opponent. I always playing against myself first and then to the other one. So I'm playing against two guys during the match...It's like mentally I don't know what is gonna happen in the next ten minutes. Maybe I get depressed in ten minutes. I don't know myself too much...Yeah, I was working with a psychology, and I still.

Gaston Gaudio

I'm now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working at turning myself into a seer. You won't understand any of this, and I'm almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It's really not my fault.

Arthur Rimbaud

I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.

Maya Angelou

I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.

Mary Oliver

I never thought of myself as a New York poet or as an American poet.

Kenneth Koch

A Quote by Leonard Cohen

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