Will Rogers Quotes

My object when writing prose is to write as clearly as possible. I think I know what I'm saying in prose, and I want others to understand it and to be able to restate it.

The greatest tragedy that can befall a poet is to be praised by being misunderstood.

I think parts of my soul have been saved by my writing, not in the sense of escaping death, but escaping the death of the moment, perhaps.

I've spent much of my life being attuned to watching for an image or a phrase that can trigger what might be a poem - could become a poem.

I'd rather call prose poems something else, for clarity - something like "poetic prose," prose that contains a quality of poetry, but not poems.

To my mind, most prose poems are more prose than poetry. They don't possess most of the qualities of a poem.

A poetic list is a talent in itself. You can write a list of things, and it can be boring.

It sounds old-fashioned to say, but we have some kind of purpose for being here, not poets or writers, but all of us humans.

I'm all in favor of poets telling about the process as much as they can. And many do.

I love the language. I'm just totally fascinated by the sound and the look of words and the kinds of cadences you can create with them, the various kinds of music.

Poetry uses language to create a music borne inside human experiences and emotions.

If I'm excited by something bodily, and curious about it, I generally want to delve into it and explore it with poetry. That's the way I ordinarily watch the world around me.

Ordering is very important with essays, even if a reader doesn't read the essays or the poems in order through the book...

Poetry is so close to music, not just in cadence and sound but in silences. That's why, to me, I can't talk about prose poems. I can talk about poetic prose.

The silences express so much and are so crucial in music, and prose does not allow for the creation of these silences, these white spaces on the page or the computer screen.

I think my prose - mine and that of others - sometimes slips into a cadence or rhythm that can replicate or come close to the music in a wonderful poem, and then it returns to the sound of prose.

When the music created by the sounds and ordering of the words matches the thrust of the meanings of the words, then a radiant state of awareness can occur.

I think the language of science is highly lyrical and evocative and an important part of our lives in many ways.

Sometimes, as in an athletic event where everything clicks, inexplicable things do happen. Learning and practicing an art or a skill has always been part of the success of the goal.

I do love writing prose interspersed with the poetry of other people. Their rhythms break into my prose and create a connection.

Baseball is my life, the only thing I know and can talk about. My only interest.

I've never been a yes man.

I never saw a pitcher I didn't feel sorry for.

The soul of music slumbers in the shell Till waked and kindled by the master's spell; And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour A thousand melodies unheard before!

Sweet Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail.

It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else.

Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it: He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.

By many a temple half as old as Time.

Vast and deep the mountain shadows grew.

A guardian angel o'er his life presiding, Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.

Those that he loved so long and sees no more, Loved and still loves,-not dead, but gone before,- He gathers round him.

Think nothing done while aught remains to do.

Mine be a cot beside the hill; A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall shall linger near.

The good are better made by ill, As odours crushed are sweeter still.

Sweet memory, wafted by the gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail, To view the fairy haunts of long-lost hours, Blest with far greener shades, far fresher flowers.

Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain, Our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain; Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise! Each stamps its image as the other flies!

When Bird came on the scene, it was just as shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark, and then the light appeared for the first time.

I'm one of those actors who likes to do it wrong nine ways before I come to the tenth way, which is the way I think it should be.

There is a big cry in California to stop everyone from running to Canada.

When your in the movie business you have a start date and a stop date.

I love to be in the position of not knowing what I'm gonna do, but having rehearsed all of those so when something happens with the others actors I go with whatever that is I'm getting.

Be a politician; no training necessary.

There is an awful lot of difference between reading something and actually seeing it, for you can never tell, till you see it, just how big a liar History is.

The stock market has spoiled more appetites than bad cooking.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Invest in inflation. It is the only thing going up.

Don't be misled by History, or any other unreliable source.

There's no way in the world you're going to make a political party respectable unless you keep it out of office.

Spinnin' a rope is fun if your neck ain't in it

You should never try and teach a pig to read for two reasons. First, it's impossible; and secondly, it annoys the hell out of the pig!.