Prose Quotes - Page 27

• The most beautiful prose paragraph yet written by any American.

  Harold Bloom

  Beautiful, Paragraph, Written

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• Traditionally poetry is written in lines. But the prose poem is the kind of poem that isn't written in lines. It is lyrical prose that uses the tricks of poetry, such as dense imagery. This is a big topic of debate in poetry land. There's no perfect definition.

  Campbell McGrath

  Land, Perfect, Use

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• There was a f**king review in f**king Melody Maker [of the first BOSSANOVA single, 'Velouria'] - 'Sounds like someone's been taking singing lessons'. Like, motherf**king A! I am the singer. Who do sing SONGS. It's like I never sang before; like I was - I don't know - reading PROSE on my previous records and now I sing. EXCUUUUUUSE me for singing

  Black Francis

  Song, Kings, Reading

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• Nobody has time for your priceless prose. Get to the point.

  Jim Michaels

  Priceless

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• Polyphonic prose is a kind of free verse, except that it is still freer. Polyphonic makes full use of cadence, rime, alliteration, assonance.

  Amy Lowell

  Use, Cadence, Kind

  "Can Grande's Castle". Book by Amy Lowell, 1921.

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• Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matters like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.

  William Carlos Williams

  Perfect, Machines, May

  William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.54, New Directions Publishing

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• It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing; they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose.

  Robertson Davies

  Attitude, Fall, Mean

  "Elements of Style". Essay by Robertson Davies, 1959.

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• There was one person who greatly and directly benefited my career--my agent Virginia Kidd. From 1968 to the late nineties she represented all my work, in every field except poetry. I could send her an utterly indescribable story, and she'd sell it to Playboy or the Harvard Law Review or Weird Tales or The New Yorker--she knew where to take it. She never told me what to write or not write, she never told me, That won't sell, and she never meddled with my prose.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Writing, Careers, Virginia

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• Oratory is, after all, the prose literature of the savage.

  George Saintsbury

  Savages, Oratory, Literature

  George Saintsbury (1934). “A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe from the earliest texts to the present day”

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• We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.

  Anne Lamott

  Teeth, Tape, Pouring

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.22, Anchor

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• Both in verse and in prose [Karl] Shapiro loves, partly out of indignation and partly out of sheer mischievousness, to tell the naked truths or half-truths or quarter-truths that will make anybody's hair stand on end; he is always crying: "But he hasn't any clothes on!" about an emperor who is half the time surprisingly well-dressed.

  Randall Jarrell

  Clothes, Hair, Naked

  "The Third Book of Criticism". Book by Randall Jarrell, "Fifty Years of American Poetry", p. 331, 1969.

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• There is such a thing as literary fashion, and prose and verse have been regulated by the same caprice that cuts our coats and cocks our hats.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Fashion, Cutting, Literature

  "Curiosities of Literature". Book by Isaac D'Israeli, 1791.

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• No people are more conceited than those who depict their own feelings, especially if they happen to have a little prose at their command for the occasion.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Conceited, People, Feelings

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• Prose is like a window; fiction is like a door. But it is not uncommon that he who should come in through the door jumps in through the window.

  Mu Xin

  Doors, Fiction, Window

  Interview with Toming Jun Liu, www.wordswithoutborders.org. July 1993.

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• [Among the books he chooses, a statesman] ought to read interesting books on history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Philosophy, Book, Science

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Bully!”, p.257, Simon and Schuster

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• Nima Shirazi's is an important progressive voice in the Iran debate in the West, often deconstructing the myths (and sometimes propaganda) we commonly encounter in the mainstream media. With succinct and elegant prose, and with no axe to grind, he exposes the hypocrisy of Western attitudes toward Iran.

  Hooman Majd

  Attitude, Media, Iran

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• Disgrace is a subtle, multi-layered story, as much concerned with politics as it is with the itch of male flesh. Coetzee's prose is chaste and lyrical without being self- conscious: it is a relief to encounter writing as quietly stylish as this. I was not totally convinced by Lurie's musical abilities, with regard to his proposed opera, but that is my sole complaint.

  Paul Bailey

  Writing, Self, Musical Ability

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• I never even considered writing a career option. I just liked the play of words. I was certainly interested in story, but the stories I was telling then were in narrative verse and prose poems, short and succinct, except for one novel-length poem written in narrative couplets.

  Charles de Lint

  Writing, Play, Careers

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• Instead of creating aesthetically pleasing prose, you have to dig into a product or service, uncover the reasons why consumers would want to buy the product, and present those sales arguments in copy that is read, understood, and reacted to—copy that makes the arguments so convincingly the customer can’t help but want to buy the product being advertised.

  Robert W. Bly

  Creating, Want, Reason Why

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• What is wonderful about a university like LSE is that you not only receive teaching of very high quality, you also learn where to find the knowledge you are seeking. And you make unexpected discoveries; it was a Marxist professor who introduced me to the work of Cardinal Newman, a great master of English prose as well as theology.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Teaching, Discovery, Quality

  "Memoirs". Book by Pierre Trudeau, 1993.

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• A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now.

  Paul McCartney

  Memories, Writing, Artist

  "Sir Paul McCartney". Interview with Chris Dahlen, pitchfork.com. May 21, 2007.

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• Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.

  Anton Chekhov

  Drama, Wife, Mistress

  "Memories of Chekhov: Accounts of the Writer from His Family, Friends and Contemporaries". Book by Peter Sekirin, September 30, 2011.

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• Full of fun, over-the-top characters and witty prose, with a touch of gay romance that is equally pleasing to straight readers. The Edwin Drood Murders is the perfect mystery for educated, intelligent readers.

  Rhys Bowen

  Witty, Fun, Character

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• I would say that the writers I like and trust have at the base of their prose something called the English sentence. An awful lot of modern writing seems to me to be a depressed use of language. Once, I called it "vow-of-poverty prose." No, give me the king in his countinghouse. Give me Updike.

  Martin Amis

  Kings, Writing, Giving

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• If you like the precision and concision of poetry, a page of prose is unsatisfying in a certain way. And poetry is so direct.

  Helen Vendler

  Pages, Way, Precision

  "Helen Vendler: Poetry Critic and Fan of Art History". Interview with Amy Sutherland, www.bostonglobe.com. November 17, 2012.

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