Quotes about rhyme
A collection of quotes on the topic of rhyme, time, timing, poetry.
Quotes about rhyme
“I dream of silent verses where the rhyme
Glides noiseless as an oar.”
From At the British Museum Collected Poems, 1929
Pop Chronicles, Show 7 - The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the rock-a-billies. Part 1 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19754/m1/, interview recorded 1956 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.
“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
Origins unclear. Earliest known match in print comes from 1970, in a collection called “Neo Poems” by Canadian artist John Robert Colombo, who recalled reading it sometime in the 1960s. Twain did say "History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends." in the 1874 edition of “The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day”. A thematic precursor, "History May Not Repeat, But It Looks Alike", appears in a 1941 article by Chicago Tribune in Illinois. (Source: Quote Investigator https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/)
Misattributed
“I set it off with my own rhyme
cause I'm as ill as a convict who kills for phone time”
Halftime
On Albums, Illmatic (1994)
Kurlansky, Mark. 1992. A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-52396-5, p. 121.
“Nihilist and Christian. They rhyme, and do not merely rhyme…”
Nihilist und Christ: das reimt sich, das reimt sich nicht bloss.
Sec. 58, as translated by R. J. Hollingdale. In German these words do rhyme; variant translation: Nihilist and Christian. They rhyme, and they do indeed do more than just rhyme.
The Antichrist (1888)
“Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.”
Mythopoeia (1931)
Child Psychology and Nonsense (15 October 1921)
Extract of From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens http://aalbc.com/reviews/50_cent_interview.htm.
Song lyrics, From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens (2005)
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6; variant translation: I will let death have no mastery over my thoughts! For therein, and in nothing else, lies goodness and love of humankind.
The Cosmos as a Poem (2010)
Family Business
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)
“Cheap little rhymes
A cheap little tune
Are sometimes as dangerous
As a sliver of the moon.”
"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
“He was the mighty Fezzik, lover of rhymes, and you did not give up, no matter what.”
Source: The Princess Bride
“I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”
"Personal Helicon", line 19, from Eleven Poems (1965).
Other Quotes
Source: Death of a Naturalist
Source: City of Bones
Stanza 6
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale
Source: Complete Poems and Selected Letters
Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker
Advice to the Poets (1731), p. 32
I'd Love to Write Another Song
Song lyrics, Avalon Sunset (1989)
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Source: The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir (2008), p. 111.
“Can't publish. Don't rhyme, don't scan.”
Harold Wilson, Memoirs 1916-1964: The Making of a Prime Minister (Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Michael Joseph, London, 1986), p. 128.
Response to John Strachey who had to ask permission to publish a collection of poems while a Minister.
Attributed
Quando nasci, um anjo torto
Desses que vivem na sombra
Disse: Vai Carlos! Ser gauche na vida.
(...)
Meu Deus, por que me abandonastes
se sabias que eu não era Deus,
se sabias que eu era fraco.
Mundo mundo vasto mundo,
se eu me chamasse Raimundo
seria uma rima, não seria uma solução.
Mundo mundo vasto mundo,
mais vasto é meu coração.
Eu não devia te dizer
mas essa lua
mas esse conhaque
botam a gente comovido como o diabo.
"Poema de sete faces" ["Seven-sided Poem"]
Alguma Poesia [Some Poetry] (1930)
History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)
(1825-2) Ideal Likenesses. Ariadne
The Monthly Magazine
Woonotes II, st. 7
1840s, Poems (1847)
Discussing the song "Like a Rolling Stone" in Rolling Stone magazine (1988)
The Dietetics of the Soul; Or, True Mental Discipline (1838)
"Indo-European Deities and the Rigveda," JIES 29 (2001), p. 257.
"A Conversation with the Inspector of Taxes about Poetry" (1926); translation from Chris Jenks Visual Culture (London: Routledge, 1995) pp. 86-7
Quote in Delacroix's Journal of 19 September 1847; as cited in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 229
1831 - 1863
“Swinburne gave the coup de grace to English rhyme.”
Otherworld Cadences (1920)
"Affirmations: As for Imagism", The New Age, January 1915
As Madvillain, "ALL CAPS", Madvillainy (2004)
Sourced Lines
“Rhymes with push-koo; I always say it sounds like a breakfast cereal.”
SHE'S A GOOD GIRL AT HEART by Terry Lawson (Detroit Free Press) http://www.elizadushkuonline.com/html_articles/2002/05_detroit-free-press.html
Explaining how to pronounce her name.
A chat with Meat Loaf (2006)
The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Preface.
Canto I, line 23
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)
I thought that would do it.
Quoted in Doug Elfman, "Takei celebrates legacy of diversity," http://www.lvrj.com/news/26861469.html Las Vegas Review-Journal (2008-08-12)
Describing how he advised William Shatner, who reportedly could never pronounce his name correctly, how to say it aloud.
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
The Need for an Alphabetically Arranged General Usage Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese (February 1986).
Source: Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 2: 1919, p. 82
"The God Called Poetry".
Country Sentiment (1920)
As quoted in "Jah" http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=GCXBuoCDcrI#Gore_Vidal_Rap_on_Da_Ali_G_Show (15 August 2004), Da Ali G Show
2000s
Bob Dylan: The Song Talk Interview http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/1991zollo.htm by Paul Zollo (1991)
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994)
“Frank: There, you see, an example of assonance.
Rita: Oh, it means getting' the rhyme wrong.”
Page 6.
Educating Rita (1980)
L'acte poétique consiste à voir soudain qu'une idée se fractionne en un nombre de motifs égaux par valeur et à les grouper; ils riment.
"Crise de Vers", La Revue Blanche (September 1895) as translated in Mallarmé : The Poet and his Circle ([1999] 2005) by Rosemary Lloyd, p. 231.
Observations
“More./What for? was a rhyme that deserved to be made more often.”
At Last, Chapter 6
I Don't Know What It Is
Song lyrics, Want One (2003)
“Rochester: It would've been hard to rhyme a dollar ninety-eight.”
The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)
The Osbournes
The Cosmos as a Poem (2010)
Lines on his Promised Pension; reported in Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England, vol ii, page 379, and in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The Music Grinders; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet
“Still may syllabes jar with time,
Still may reason war with rhyme,
Resting never!”
XXIX, A Fit of Rhyme Against Rhyme
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Underwoods
(Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball
Song lyrics, Tupelo Honey (1971)
Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 3: The Training of the Poet (p. 21)
Source: Martin Eden (1909), Ch. XXXII