Verses Quotes - Page 24

• I started with the chorus of that song, kind of like a fun bouncy thing to play, and then one of the lines popped up: 'I got things to do today, people to see, things to say.' I wrote about a dozen verses for it, but no song needs to be that long unless you're Bob Dylan. So when we recorded it I started to tear it down to some of the lines I thought were the funniest.

  Jorma Kaukonen

  Song, Fun, Writing

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• So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read.

  Robert Graves

  Waiting, Heaven, Hell

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

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• The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places.The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Poetry, Attention, Definitions

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835). “Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Two Volumes”, p.214

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• Time, which despoils castles, enriches verses.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Time, Castles

  Jorge Luis Borges (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.154, New Directions Publishing

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• It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.

  Samuel Johnson

  May, Said, Prudence

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1824). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare”, p.25

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• The man who invented Eskimo Pie made a million dollars, so one is told, but E.E. Cummings, whose verse has been appearing off andon for three years now, and whose experiments should not be more appalling to those interested in poetry than the experiment of surrounding ice-cream with a layer of chocolate was to those interested in soda fountains, has hardly made a dent in the doughy minds of our so-called poetry lovers.

  John Dos Passos

  Men, Pie, Ice Cream

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• Mostly the thought and the verse come inseparably. In my poem Poetics, it's as close as I come to telling how I do it.

  Howard Nemerov

  Literature, Poetic

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• Of little use, the man you may suppose,
  Who says in verse what others say in prose;
  Yet let me show a poet's of some weight,
  And (though no soldier) useful to the state,
  What will a child learn sooner than a song?
  What better teach a foreigner the tongue?
  What's long or short, each accent where to place
  And speak in public with some sort of grace?

  Alexander Pope

  Song, Children, Men

  Alexander Pope (1829). “An Essay on Man: And Other Poems”, p.156

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• I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library-everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right.

  Bob Dylan

  Song, Book, Ideas

  Bob Dylan (2011). “Chronicles”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

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• In Phebus realm, in knowledge as in verse,All things are clear, the sun of Phoebus clear,Clear was his crystal, the Kastalian.What you cannot clearly say, you don't know:To tongue of man his thought brings word:What's said obscurely is what's thought obscurely.

  Esaias Tegner

  Men, Tongue, Sun

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• It would be impossible to learn the lessons the scriptures contain by reading them only one time through or studying selected verses in a class.

  Julie B. Beck

  Reading, Class, Would Be

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• The summer lasted a long long time, like verse after verse of a ballad, but when it ended, it ended like a man falling dead in the street of heart trouble. One night, all in one night, severe winter came, a white horse of snow rolling over Bountiful, snorting and rolling in its meadows, its fields.

  Ardyth Kennelly

  Summer, Horse, Fall

  Ardyth Kennelly (1949). “The Peaceable Kingdom”

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• Believe it or not, I sold my first novel, Crank, with only seventy-five pages complete. It was in verse then, and it was hard-hitting then.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Believe, Hitting, Pages

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• In verse one can take any damn constant one likes, one can alliterate, or assone, or rhyme, or quant, or smack, only one MUST leave the other elements irregular.

  Ezra Pound

  Poetry, Elements, Likes

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• Take my verses too serious ya hate me, cause I'm the one to paint a vivid picture, no HD.

  Drake

  Hater, Humble, Vivid

  Song: Successful, 2009

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• A tattered copy of Johnson's large Dictionary was a great delight to me, on account of the specimens of English versifications which I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming occupation it must be to "make up" verses.

  Lucy Larcom

  Morning, Thinking, Poetry

  Lucy Larcom (1961). “A New England girlhood”

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• Faith greatly shaped America's role in the world. We are a country that embodies the Bible verse from Luke chapter 12, verse 48 "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded."

  Marco Rubio

  Country, America, Roles

  Source: www.cnn.com

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• Oh, princes thrive on caviar, the poor on whey and curds, / And politicians, I infer, must eat their windy words. / It's crusts that feed the virtuous, it's cake that comforts sinners, / But writers live on bread and praise at Literary Dinners.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Cake, Comfort, Caviar

  Phyllis McGinley (1951). “A Short Walk from the Station”

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• I don't think of myself as an author. But simply as a grateful child of God. John 3:27 has long been a life verse: "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven." Any more words will only be solely a gift from Him. I can only faithfully wait.

  Ann Voskamp

  Children, Grateful, Men

  Source: livesentresources.wordpress.com

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• The charms of money are distinctly under-represented in literature. There are no songs or poems extolling its virtues. This seems on the face of it strange. The claims of money to be celebrated in verse might well seem to be no less than those of faithful dogs, beautiful women, or jugs of wine.

  Celia Green

  Beautiful, Dog, Song

  "The decline and fall of science". Book by Celia Elizabeth Green, 1976.

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• One should put forth great effort in matters of learning. One should read books concerning military matters, and direct his attention exclusively to
  the virtues of loyalty and filial piety. Reading Chinese poetry, linked
  verse, and waka is forbidden. One will surely become womanized if he gives
  his heart such knowledge of such elegant and delicate refinements. Having
  been born into the house of a warrior, one's intentions should be to grasp
  the long and the short swords and to die

  Kato Kiyomasa

  Loyalty, Military, Reading

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• The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

  Dr. Seuss

  Friday, Book, Writing

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• In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin' these songs too damn long.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, but I'm tellin' a story. I have a story to tell.' And he'd say, 'Well, you're not going to get it on the radio.' If I start writing a song, I'm writing it for a reason. People would say that I had to have two verses, and a chorus, and a bridge. I tried to learn that formula.

  Dolly Parton

  Song, Writing, Bridges

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• These days, I find I'm applying a little more patience to my process. If I look back on my work, I can see those songs I bailed on could have been better, that had those great two verses and then I kind of coasted from there. These days, if a song is giving me trouble, I put it aside and pick it up later, and keep doing that, for a year if I have to, until it takes shape.

  Ani DiFranco

  Song, Writing, Years

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• We definitely set out to make a great 'radio' record. We set out to write great hooky choruses-but with verses that said something.

  LeAnn Rimes

  Writing, Records, Radio

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