“Lord but I dislike poetry. How can anyone remember words that aren’t put to music?”

—  Patrick Rothfuss, book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 112)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Lord but I dislike poetry. How can anyone remember words that aren’t put to music?" by Patrick Rothfuss?
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Patrick Rothfuss236
American fantasy writer 1973

Related quotes

“…I engage with poetry musically. I think I hear the music of the poem before I put words to it. The poem comes to me as it were a song more than a string of words or images. If I can’t transport that musical quality to the poem, then the poem doesn’t exist for me…”

Lucha Corpi (1945)

On how she favors a musical quality to her poetry in the book Truthtellers of the Times: Interviews with Contemporary Women Poets https://books.google.com/books?id=LkVO9mmfwZYC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq

Vālmīki photo

“This is truly how I remember the ways of the world. Those words I cursed him with make a verse, and that verse could be sung to music.”

Vālmīki Legendary Indian poet, author of the Ramayana

In. p. 7.
He remembered these words uttered in a verse form, when he got back to his hermitage. It was then that Brahma appeared before him.

Théophile Gautier photo

“Fancy demanding feeling from poetry! That's not the main thing at all. Radiant words, words of light, full of rhythm and music, that's poetry.”

Théophile Gautier Paris

Demander à la poésie du sentimentalisme…ce n'est pas ça. Des mots rayonnants, des mots de lumière…avec un rythme et une musique, voilà ce que c'est, la poésie.
Remark, June 22, 1863, reported in the Journal des Goncourts (Paris: Bibliothèque-Charpentier, 1888) vol. 2, p. 123, (ellipses in the original); Arnold Hauser (trans. Stanley Godman and Arnold Hauser) The Social History of Art (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951) vol. 2, p. 684.

Don McLean photo

“A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile”

Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter

Song lyrics, American Pie (1971), American Pie
Context: A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while.
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The Day the Music Died.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

12 July 1827
Table Talk (1821–1834)

John Stuart Mill photo

“the correct statement would be, not that I disliked poetry, but that I was theoretically indifferent to it. I disliked any sentiments in poetry which I should have disliked in prose; and that included a great deal. And I was wholly blind to its place in human culture, as a means of educating the feelings. But I was always personally very susceptible to some kinds of it.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

'Long before I had enlarged in any considerable degree, the basis of my intellectual creed, I had obtained in the natural course of my mental progress, poetic culture of the most valuable kind, by means of reverential admiration for the lives and characters of heroic persons; especially the heroes of philosophy.'
Autobiography (1873)

E.E. Cummings photo

“Why do you paint?
For exactly the same reason I breathe.
That’s not an answer.
There isn’t any answer.
How long hasn’t there been any answer?
As long as I can remember.
And how long have you written?
As long as I can remember.
I mean poetry.
So do I.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"Forward to an Exhibit: II" (1945)

Chuck Palahniuk photo

“In truth, the degree of anyone's success depends on how often they can say the word yes and hear the word no.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Tell-All

Source: Tell-All

Rupi Kaur photo

“People aren’t used to poetry that’s so easy and simple.”

Rupi Kaur (1992) Canadian poet

On her work in “ The young ‘Instapoet’ Rupi Kaur: from social media star to bestselling writer” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/27/rupi-kaur-i-dont-fit-age-race-class-of-bestselling-poet-milk-and-honey in The Guardian (2017 May 27)

Related topics