"Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means."

Source : Billy Collins (2014). “The Apple That Astonished Paris: Poems”, p.58, University of Arkansas Press

Billy Collins

#Wall Quotes #Mean Quotes #Light Quotes

“I've had a year out of work, more, and just toughed it out. There are those who think that all actors are overpaid. I beg to differ.”

Source : "Richard Griffiths: 'I've always hated the way I look'" by Simon Garfield, www.theguardian.com. October 9, 2005.
“Energy-saving technologies keep improving faster than they're applied, so efficiency is an ever larger and cheaper resource.”

Source : "Amory Lovins on energy". CNN Interview, www.cnn.com. October 16, 2008.
“It's very rare that you get a group of people who are all passionate and driven and all get along.”

Source : "Crush of the Week: Kelly Blatz". Seventeen Interview, www.seventeen.com. November 9, 2010.
“Many school administrators are so cautious that they have erroneously erased all traces of religion. Some have run roughshod over teachers. Others have attempted to squelch all discussion of religion.”
“I like the idea of there being times when even words cost so much you used them sparingly. I have known a lot of old men and women who talked as if they were paying Western Union by the word.”

Source : Ted Kooser (2014). “The Wheeling Year: A Poet's Field Book”, p.80, U of Nebraska Press
“Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.”
“We accept there's an emotional aspect to life. But we're not very developed in our ways of understanding it.”

Source : "Britain's intellectuals: leading thinkers have their say". www.theguardian.com. May 7, 2011.
“A good portfolio is more than a long list of good stocks and bonds. It is a balanced whole, providing the investor with protections and opportunities with respect to a wide range of contingencies.”

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