Wendy Cope famous quotes

03-24-2025

Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion! I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.
-- Wendy Cope

#Writing #People #Suggestions
The interesting thing is that you don't often meet a poet who doesn't have a sense of humour, and some of them do keep it out of their poems because they're afraid of being seen as light versifiers.
-- Wendy Cope

#Light #Interesting #Poet
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange The size of it made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Daveâ€” They got quarters and I had a half. And that orange it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park This is peace and contentment. It's new. The rest of the day was quite easy. I did all my jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I'm glad I exist.
-- Wendy Cope

#Jobs #Love You #Shopping
Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.
-- Wendy Cope

#Christmas #Men #Earth
In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.
-- Wendy Cope

#Book #Writing #Thinking
Possibly I've become less funny as I've been happier.
-- Wendy Cope
I used to think all poets were Byronic Mad, bad and dangerous to know. And then I met a few. See Lamb 486:25.
-- Wendy Cope

#Thinking #Mad #Lambs
There are so many kinds of awful men One can't avoid them all. She often said She'd never make the same mistake again: She always made a new mistake instead.
-- Wendy Cope

#Mistake #Men #Awful
My heart has made its mind up And I'm afraid it's you.
-- Wendy Cope

#Heart #Mind #My Heart
Some socks are loners They can't live in pairs.
-- Wendy Cope

#Loner #Pairs #Sock
Never trust a journalist.
-- Wendy Cope

#Never Trust #Journalist
I've said what I'm prepared to say in my poems, and then journalists think that you're going to tell them a whole lot more.
-- Wendy Cope

#Thinking #Said #Journalist
I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?
-- Wendy Cope

#Thinking #Long #People
I like buying clothes, especially as I get a tax-deductible allowance.
-- Wendy Cope

#Clothes #Buying #Allowance
I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.
-- Wendy Cope

#Happy Life #Thinking #Plot
On Waterloo Bridge where we said our goodbyes, the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes. I wipe them away with a black woolly glove And try not to notice I've fallen in love On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think: This is nothing. you're high on the charm and the drink. But the juke-box inside me is playing a song That says something different. And when was it wrong? On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair I am tempted to skip. You're a fool. I don't care. the head does its best but the heart is the boss- I admit it before I am halfway across
-- Wendy Cope

#Goodbye #Song #Heart
My heart has made its mind up And Iâ€™m afraid itâ€™s you. Whatever youâ€™ve got lined up, My heart has made its mind up And if you canâ€™t be signed up This year, next year will do. My heart has made its mind up And Iâ€™m afraid itâ€™s you.
-- Wendy Cope

#Heart #Years #Mind
Bloody men are like bloody buses - you wait for about a year and as soon as one approaches your stop two or three others appear.
-- Wendy Cope

#Men #Two #Years
I've never been more famous than I was, suddenly, in 1986.
-- Wendy Cope
When a poem doesn't work, the first question to ask yourself is, 'Am I telling the truth?'
-- Wendy Cope

#Firsts #Telling The Truth
I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, and if you're afraid it's going to upset someone, don't publish it.
-- Wendy Cope

#Writing #Two #Upset
I have a theory that if you've got the kind of parents who want to send you to boarding school, you're probably better off at boarding school.
-- Wendy Cope

#School #Parent #Want
The reason modern poetry is difficult is so that the poet's wife cannot understand it.
-- Wendy Cope

#Wife #Poetry #Reason

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