Prose Quotes

Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity.

Prose is in fact the museum where the dead images of verse are preserved. In 'Notes', prose is 'a museum where all the old weapons of poetry kept.

when a poem says something that could not have been said in any other way, in music, prose, sculpture, movement or paint, then it is poetry.

The unit of the poet is the word, the unit of the prose writer is the sentence.

The poetry of life must not be replaced with matter-of-fact prose.

We can write the new chapters in a visual language whose prose and poetry will need no translation.

There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean - hell, I know that.

According to [Maxine Hong] Kingston, the prose writer is "a workhorse."

Don't scatter your fire! You are a prose writer: stick to your own tool!

The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.

There is nothing quite like the controlled burn of Eugene Marten’s prose. Waste is an exhilarating and unnerving piece of fiction.

I don't do much of anything consciously in writing - in poetry writing, anyway, prose usually being a different matter, of course.

I love seeing the light go on in aspiring writers' eyes when you point out ways to improve their prose or their story - when they get it.

With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.

And I was troubled by the heavy-handed prose of so much psychoanalytic writing, which seemed drowned in its own concepts.

Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.

Metaphors are an interesting example of creating magic in prose.

And of all glad words of prose or rhyme, The gladdest are Act while there yet is time

Prose and poetry are as different as food and drink.

I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

When I am writing a novel I try not to read great prose stylists into which I will fall.

Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.

Sociological prose can tell you everything, but it can't point out the grief.

I often say that Bernhard, W.G. Sebald, and Javier Marías are my stylistic holy trinity, prose writers who amaze me with their notation of consciousness and voice.

I guess I find the boundaries between poetry and prose to be somewhat permeable.

When I feel something very intensely or deeply or personally, I can go to extremes of self-expression or self-analysis by writing a poem - more than I can just talking to somebody or writing prose.

I've written a lot of prose. I just haven't published it.

Writing a poem is a more personal experience, I think, than writing prose. And perhaps reading a poem is a more personal experience than reading prose, though that's harder to say.

I was 14 or 15 when I discovered poetry, and I pretty much stopped writing prose until Master of Reality.

When I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

The older I get, the more I seek to use a plain prose style, concentrating more on story.

What I'm constantly striving for in my prose is clarity. So that, ideally, the writing will become so transparent that the reader will forget that the medium of communication is language.

The short story feels like the most natural length for prose fiction, or certainly for the kind of ideas and situations I like to encounter.

I don't think there's any essential difference, at least for me, between writing poetry and writing prose.

When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it's not just typing. It takes a while to get that voice.

That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand this?

Prose-it might be speculated-is discourse; poetry ellipsis. Prose is spoken aloud; poetry overheard.

Jack Kerouac did what he most wanted to do. He wrote great prose. He became the writer he wanted to be.

I am a big fan of Dos Passos' stylistic ability, his poetic approach to prose, but the ideas presented in the songs are quite different from those which he exemplified.

Writing anything is terribly hard but, alas for me, because I am addicted, a heck of a lot of fun. I often am sorry I ever started writing prose, because it is so hard. But I can't stop.

Rachel Cusk's books are like pop-up volumes for grown-ups, the prose springing out of the page to bop you neatly between the eyes with its insights.

In true prose everything must be underlined.

Gritty and witty, The Chicago Way is done the classic Raymond Chandler Way. Harvey's taut plot, snappy prose, and memorable characters make this debut novel a real winner.

There's a perception that good writing is writing which runs smoothly. But smooth-running prose can work against what you're trying to express in a novel.

My husband makes fun of me, because I know I can use strong prose to jazz-hand my way through plot that isn't as interesting as I'd like it to be.

Poetry and prose are of equal importance to me as a reader, and there doesn't seem to be much difference in my own writing.

Maggie Shipstead's prose is so graceful and muscular, so dazzling, so sure-handed and fearless, that at times I had to remind myself to breathe. Astonish Me is a treasure of small surprises.

I like a great degree of compression. I like to mix lateral steps with forward ones. I don't want the prose ever to feel simply functional - at least not for any stretch.

A Wedding In Haiti is a great experience and its unaffected prose is as true a portrait of complex Haiti as you will find.

I never wrote poetry, just prose. I don't really consider songwriting a form of poetry either. The words are important, of course, but they're dependent on the music.