Variant: How does one become a butterfly? They have to want to learn to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.
Source: Hope for the Flowers
“His poetry, so wonderful when it is really flying, isn’t trying to tell you how much he knows. It’s giving thanks for how much there is to be known.”
On Peter Porter, 'Talking for Posterity' (Times Literary Supplement, May 14, 2010)
Essays and reviews
Context: [H]e could never have played the hero, because for him it was creativity itself that had the heroic status, beyond politics, beyond patriotism, beyond even personal happiness. It’s the reason why his work is like that. His poetry, so wonderful when it is really flying, isn’t trying to tell you how much he knows. It’s giving thanks for how much there is to be known.
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Clive James 151
Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator an… 1939–2019Related quotes
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Tell Her About It.
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