“A poet is not something you become; a poet is something you are.”
Jack Prelutsky (1940) American writer
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
— T.S. Eliot, book The Sacred Wood
Source: "Philip Massinger", a biographical essay in The Sacred Wood (1920)
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T.S. Eliot270
20th century English author 1888–1965Related quotes
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Context: I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken.