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5714 Poet Quotes

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?

Does Dream Dry Explode
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I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

Almost Anywhere Discovered Getting
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An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Afraid Also Artist Certainly
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My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

America Been Concerned Depicting
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Violent anger makes me physically ill.

Anger Ill Makes Me
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In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.

Able All My Life Anything Been
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I must never write when I do not want to write.

Must Never Want Write
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Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who can escape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art.

Advanced American Among Art
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Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their 'white' culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work.

American Among Artist Be Different
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To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering 'I want to be white,' hidden in the aspirations of his people, to 'Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!'

Accepts Am Any Art
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Very early in life, it seemed to me that there was a relationship between the problems of the Negro people in America and the Jewish people in Russia, and that the Jewish people's problems were worse than ours.

America Between Early Jewish
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The Jewish people and the Negro people both know the meaning of Nordic supremacy. We have both looked into the eyes of terror.

Both Eyes Jewish Jewish People
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One of the great needs of Negro children is to have books about themselves and their lives that can help them be proud.

About Books Children Great
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Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.
Artist Beauty Interpret Mission
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Writing is like travelling. It's wonderful to go somewhere, but you get tired of staying.

Get Go Like Somewhere
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Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.

Always Dealt Difficulties Every
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As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

Always Career Ever Feel
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Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to.

Blood Gets Least Producers
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A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

About First First Time Give
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It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.

Breath Inadequate Like Lover
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There is not a more repulsive spectacle than on old man who will not forsake the world, which has already forsaken him.

Forsake Forsaken Him Man
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Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.
Enough High Literature Our
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Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.
Anxiety Creativity Hand Maiden
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Business today consists in persuading crowds.
Business Consists Crowds Today
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Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.

Does Done Due Feel
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Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Information Knowledge Life Living
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We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.

Convinced Know Literature Little
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Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
Imitate Immature Mature Poets
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The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.
Important Important Thing Little Most
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Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Before Communicate Genuine Poetry
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Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.

Alter Any Beyond Different Emotions
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Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?
Information Knowledge Lost Where
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The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

Deed Greatest Last Reason
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People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.

Cannot Events Ever Happened
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So the lover must struggle for words.
Lover Must Struggle Words
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I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different.

Birth Death Different Had
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My greatest trouble is getting the curtain up and down.

Curtain Down Getting Greatest
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The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

Composing Discovers First Last
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I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

Coffee Life Measured My Life
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It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.
Objects Only Selves Space
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It's not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.

How Know Observe Rules
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The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.

Bad Conscious He Ought
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Art never improves, but... the material of art is never quite the same.
Art Improves Material Never
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The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

Artist Extinction Personality Progress
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I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Dust Fear Handful Show
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It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.

Blind Experienced Explain Light
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Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.

Absolute Always Beyond Escapes
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O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Above All Things Deceitful Deliver
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Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.

Cannot Degree Even Finger
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All significant truths are private truths. As they become public they cease to become truths; they become facts, or at best, part of the public character; or at worst, catchwords.

Become Best Best Part Cease
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