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Billy Collins Quotes


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Quotes by Billy Collins

Showing 1-10 of 84 Quotes by Billy Collins

A lasting marriage, they say, is one where the two reach for different sections of the Sunday paper. Me, I go right for the obituaries, just like those very elderly characters in Muriel Spark's spooky novel, 'Memento Mori.'

~Billy Collins

Topics: Characters Different Elderly Go Just Lasting Like Marriage Me Memento Novel Obituaries Paper Reach Right Say Sections Spark Spooky Sunday They Say Those Two Very Where

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The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement. If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you're simply using a pen to record what you have thought out.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Agenda Discovery Implement Instrument Just Letter Out Pen Rather Record Recording Resignation Simply Something Than Thought Using Write You

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Poetry can do a lot of things to people. I mean it can improve your imagination. It can take you to new places. It can give you this incredible form of verbal pleasure.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Form Give Imagination Improve Incredible Lot Mean New New Places People Places Pleasure Poetry Take Things Verbal You Your

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I find that my reading, particularly nonfiction, can inspire a poem as well as anything else.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Anything Anything Else Else Find Inspire Nonfiction Particularly Poem Reading Well

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There's something very authentic about humor, when you think about it. Anybody can pretend to be serious. But you can't pretend to be funny.

~Billy Collins

Topics: About Anybody Authentic Funny Humor Pretend Serious Something Think Very You

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I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue. If it does, I can feel a sense of momentum - the poem finds a reason for continuing.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Continue Continuing Develop Does Feel Finds First Gets Goes Going Line Momentum Nowhere Occur Other Poem Reason Sense Sometimes Tell Think Times Wants Will You I Think I Can

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Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Cheap Different Different Place Dropped Drove End He Him Like Means Night Off Outside Place Poem Poetry Reader Should Slightly Started Town Transportation Where Would

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We love, you know, children love the ingredients of poetry. And then they go into this tunnel that we call adolescence, and when they come out of it, they hate poetry.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Adolescence Call Children Come Go Hate Ingredients Know Love Love You Out Poetry Then Tunnel You

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I learned snails don't have ears. They live in silence. They go slowly. Slowly, slowly in silence.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Ears Go Learned Live Silence Slowly

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The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A lot of it has to do with tone because tone is the key signature for the poem. The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme.

~Billy Collins

Topics: Basis Because Constructed First Key Line Lot Meter Out Poem Reader Rest Signature Tone Trust Used Dna

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Poet

Born: March 22nd, 1941

Links

Find Billy Collins on Amazon

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