A Quote by Theodore Roethke

Any fool can take a bad line out of a poem; it takes a real pro to throw out a good line.

Theodore Roethke

Quote Topics

Any Bad Fool Good Line Out Poem Pro Real Take Takes Throw

Quote Author

Theodore Roethke
American - Poet
May 25, 1908 - August 1, 1963

The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A lot of it has to do with tone because tone is the key signature for the poem. The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme.

Billy Collins

It was early on in 1965 when I wrote some of my first poems. I sent a poem to 'Harper's' magazine because they paid a dollar a line. I had an eighteen-line poem, and just as I was putting it into the envelope, I stopped and decided to make it a thirty-six-line poem. It seemed like the poem came back the next day: no letter, nothing.

August Wilson

I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem.

Howard Nemerov

I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue. If it does, I can feel a sense of momentum - the poem finds a reason for continuing.

Billy Collins

I have learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

Leo Burnett

I've learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

Daniel J. Boorstin

In my dreams and visions, I seemed to see a line, and on the other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the line, but I couldn't reach them no-how. I always fell before I got to the line.

Harriet Tubman

When I was a freshman, I fooled around with shooting free throws this way: For some reason, I thought you had to stay within the top half of that free-throw circle, so I would step back to just inside the top of the circle, take off from behind the line and dunk. They outlawed that, but I wouldn't have done it in a game, anyway. I was a good free throw shooter in college." Actually he was a 62% free throw shooter, which is poor except in comparison to his 51% as a pro.

Wilt Chamberlain

I'm very conscious of the fact that every line should have a cadence to it. It should contribute to the progress of the poem. And that the ending of the line is a way of turning the reader's attention back into the interior of the poem.

Billy Collins

It takes courage to step out of the line marked 'security' into the line marked 'risk.'

Robert G. Allen

It is cool to be a pro wrestler and that makes it so much better for us as pro wrestlers - who go out there and put our bodies on the line and give the fans the entertainment that they deserve.

Jake Hager

Billy Collins

We know that a statement proved to be good must be oorrect. New thoughts are constantly obtaining the floor. These two theories - that all is matter, or that all is Mind-will dispute the ground, until one is acknowledged to be the victor. Discussing his campaign, General Grant said: "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer." Science says: All is Mind and Mind's idea. You must fight it out on this line. Matter can afford you no aid.

Mary Baker Eddy

People come out to see the players. When do you see a manager anyway? When he's out on the field arguing with the umpires, making a fool of himself and you know you can't win, and when he brings out the line-up card.

Frank Robinson

And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.