“There is a line of poetry, a sentence in a fable, a word in an essay, by which my existence is justified; find that line, and immortality is assured.”
Source: The Library at Night
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Alberto Manguel63
writer 1948Related quotes
“I wake to "magnolias sweet and fresh",
Lines of poetry on my breath”
"Firefly" on Greta Gaines (1999); the phrase in quotes is one earlier found in "Strange Fruit" (1937) by Abel Meeropol, famously sung by Billie Holiday.
Context: I wake to "magnolias sweet and fresh",
Lines of poetry on my breath,
You were here but you have stolen away.
My inspiration is an evening star,
So come to me wherever you are,
I will wait for you tonight alone in the dark…
“The line is a way of thinking in poetry, by poetry.. it paces the poem.”
Edward Hirsch (1950)
'Five points' vol 4 no 2 Georgia State University Press Winter 2000
Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet
O Taste and See : New Poems (1964), The Secret
Source: Poems, 1960-1967
Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) Austrian artist
:
Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)
“He who improvises can never make a perfect line of poetry.”
Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter
As quoted in A Dictionary of Art and Artists (1959) by Peter Murray and Linda Murray, p. 321.
undated quotes
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930) Russian and Soviet poet, playwright, artist and stage and film actor
"At the Top of My Voice" (1929-30); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) p. 227
Stanley Fish (1938) American academic
Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 6, The Additive Style, p. 62