As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and oratory, so is music the exaltation of poetry. — Henry Purcell
Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them. — Dennis Gabor
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. — William Wordsworth
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. — Kahlil Gibran
Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words. — Paul Engle
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. — Carl Sandburg
Be aroused by poetry; structure yourself with propriety, refine yourself with music. — Confucius
Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation. — Robert Fitzgerald
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Short Lyric Poetry Quotes
Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings. — W. H. Auden
Poetry's medium is not merely light as air, it is air: vital and deep as ordinary breath. — Robert Pinsky
Poetry teaches us music, metaphor, condensation and specificity. — Walter Mosley
Poetry is a sort of homecoming. — Paul Celan
Poetry is philosophy's sister, the one that wears makeup. — Jennifer Grotz
Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. — Carl Sandburg
The crown of literature is poetry. — W. Somerset Maugham
Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it. — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince. — H. L. Mencken
Lyric Poetry Image Quotes
The best listeners listen between the lines.
Poetry Day Quotes
Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky. — Rabindranath Tagore
Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think. — Horace
Starry Starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land. — Don McLean
I have nature and art and poetry and if that is not enough, what is?
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I am not greedy. I do not seek to possess the major portion of your days. I am content if, on those rare occasions whose truth can be stated only by poetry, you will, perhaps, recall an image, even only the aura of my films. — Maya Deren
this is thy hour o soul, thy free flight into the wordless, away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, night, sleep, death and the stars. — Walt Whitman
Music is my life, but the lyrics tell you my stories
Cause I might be naked and lonely Shaking branches for bones But I'm still time zones away From who I was the day before we met You were the first mile Where my heart broke a sweat And I wish you were here I wish you'd never left But mostly I wish you well I wish you my very very best. — Andrea Gibson
If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world. — Mark Strand
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields. — John McCrae
Power Of Poetry Quotes
A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart. — Peggy Noonan
Nothing in the world can be compared to the human face. It is a land one can never tire of exploring. There is no greater experience in a studio than to witness the expression of a sensitive face under the mysterious power of inspiration. To see it animated from inside, and turning into poetry. — Carl Theodor Dreyer
Wine is bottled poetry
Poetry is a natural energy resource of our country. It has no energy crisis, possessing a potential that will last as long as the country. Its power is equal to that of any country in the world. — Richard Eberhart
Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine, as perhaps it may be thought, the true poetry of life. — William Osler
The trombone is the true head of the family of wind instruments... it has all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious, calm and imposing accents to savage, orgiastic outburst. — Hector Berlioz
The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life? That you are here - that life exists and identity, that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. — Walt Whitman
When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. — John F. Kennedy
C.S. Lewis says that fiction is able to sneak past the watchful dragons of religion. It becomes more powerful to speak in poetry.
The song goes straight to the heart while the numbers
and the math of it will never be able to reach that. — Jon Foreman
Poetry, above all is a series of intense moments its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing
with emotion. — Carol Ann Duffy
I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be. — Chris Cornell
The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, 'Well done, thy good and faithful servant,' is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal! — Keith Green
Sometimes I need to reject the music proposed for my songs because the musicians misunderstand that the Fanny Crosby who once wrote for the people in the saloons has merely changed the lyrics. Oh my no. The church must never sing it's songs to the melodies of the world. — Fanny Crosby
When you're happy you enjoy the music, but when you're sad you understand the lyrics. — Frank Ocean
And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear. — Lord Byron
All my lyrics are open to interpretation by the individual and imply many different meanings, therefore their relevance is purely subjective. — Ian Curtis
I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me. — Archilochus
You were the one who made things different, you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count on, above all, you were my friend. — Tom Petty
I was babysitting the night High School Musical premiered last year. I watched with the kids and we sang along to the lyrics. I was making $12 an hour. — Monique Coleman
Lyric Quotes
It was about working with other musicians, but more than that it's about exploring musical areas that you could never do with the band you're in, in my case Judas Priest. You could tackle musical areas and lyrical areas that wouldn't be appropriate for Priest. — Glenn Tipton
All classes of people under social pressure are permeated with a common experience; they are emotionally welded as others cannot be. With them, even ordinary living has epic depth and lyric intensity, and this, their material handicap, is their spiritual advantage. — Alain LeRoy Locke
Its a combination of melody and lyrics, not one without the other. Its a confluence of these different elements that makes something powerful. — Michael Bolton
When you write a song, most of the words you use are in black and white, and then, from time to time, you use one that’s in color. These words in color are a part of ourselves, because we give them a meaning. If you like, we give them a third dimension. — Jacques Brel
I write the lyrics based on what is going on in my life - I'm not going to write about the old hair metal stuff, like castles and stuff. — Oliver Sykes
But, Eminem... No, I've loved rap for a long time, especially when it got out of its first period and became this gangsta rap, ya know this heavy rap thing? That's when I started to fall in love with it. I loved the lyrics. I loved the beat. — Alan Vega
Are you tired of lyrical liars, passing fliers,
Wannabe MC's, but really good triers,
Tripping over mic cords, getting you bored,
A total fraud, this kind of thing I can't afford! — KRS-One
Once there was a darkness, a deep and endless night, you gave me everything you had and oh, you gave me light — Sarah McLachlan
Song Lyric Quotes
When I wrote a song, it would have to be from something I was really excited about, or a melody that's been haunting me for weeks, or a message I wanted to convey lyrically. So it would have to start from something I felt very strongly about. — Brendon Urie
Chelsea Morning is a great Joni Mitchell song and I guess I'm partial to her lyrics because they show me a slightly different perspective on life. — Neil Diamond
A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song. — John Mellencamp
You're like the lyrics to my favorite song. You stick with me all day long. And when I reach the end I wanna hear it again. — TobyMac
We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation. — Art Garfunkel
I'm really big into lyrics in my own songs, so I look up to Drake in that aspect. — Jake Paul
We recorded Star Climbing over a three-year period between our studios, working on songs and lyrics until we felt like we had found the albums direction. It is our most distinctive album to date, combining all our different tastes and styles into one. — Stuart Price
Music's staying power is a function of how timeless the lyrics, song and production are. — Gary Wright
Words are what make the song. I get a personal vision about what the lyrics are about. — Julie Andrews
We all love to sing along with our favorite songs. We sing in the car, in the shower, and at the karaoke bar. The problem is that half the time we don't know what we're singing. We're making up lyrics as we go along and hoping no one will notice. — Shawn Amos
What Is Poetry Quotes
If I could take your troubles
I would toss them into the sea,
But all these things I'm finding
Are impossible for me.
I cannot build a mountain
Or catch a rainbow fair,
But let me be what I know best,
A friend that is always there. — Kahlil Gibran
Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript oƒ a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that. — Rumi
What is Music? How do you define it? Music is a calm moonlit night, the rustle of leaves in Summer. Music is the far off peal of bells at dusk! Music comes straight from the heart and talks only to the heart: it is Love! Music is the Sister of Poetry and her Mother is sorrow! — Sergei Rachmaninoff
Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does. — Allen Ginsberg
As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing. — T. S. Eliot
Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do. — Stephen Spender
Love itself is what is left over when being "in love" has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. — Louis de Bernieres
What you have to realize when you write poetry, or if you love poetry, is that poetry is just naturally the greatest god damn thing that ever was in the whole universe — James Dickey
Will you love me in December as you do in May,
Will you love me in the good old fashioned way?
When my hair has all turned gray,
Will you kiss me then and say,
That you love me in December as you do in May? — Jimmy Walker
I think it need realness, you should speak on thing that you know about, that you being from, that you experienced or that you been around, you know. I think you need a good hook, good beats and good lyrics. — Obie Trice
What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman. — Walker Evans
A man who is not touched by the earthy lyricism of hot pastrami, the pungent fantasy of corned beef, pickles, frankfurters, the great lusty impertinence of good mustard is a man of stone and without heart. — Herb Gardner
I'm not crazy about country-western music. But the lyrics are good. "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" is pretty clever. — Alice Cooper
I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it’s understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don’t have a clue what they’re on about. — Marcus Mumford
People don't really care about lyrics anymore. It's kinda really sad, like they'll listen to something musically and has a really cool beat down or something, that's great, that's good enough; but the message is the most important thing. — Roger Miret
For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It's a chance to get some really good words across. — Joe Strummer
A good idea for lyrics and a melody to expand on. — Gordon Waller
Since I didn't spend a great amount of time on writing the lyrics, some people would argue that they're too vague or simplistic, but I think it's kind of good. I wouldn't say they're all stream of consciousness, but they're not necessarily overwrought. — Jack Tatum
Great Lyric Quotes
The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the outlaw, the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order. — Michel Foucault
But I always loved songs with great lyrics. — Johnny Rivers
This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul. — Eugenio Montale
Sometimes, the best songs are the ones you write without any pen and paper or audio recording device or guitar in your hands. Because there's nothing between you and the melody; it's just a great lyric. — Jon Foreman
The video forum for me has been a source of great consternation because once you start projecting a look to a song, it robs the listener of their ability to adopt that song and make the lyric their own. — Sheryl Crow
I create my own lyrics. I have a great band. I have a drummer from East Berlin. — Nina Hagen
I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out. — Thom Yorke
Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages. — Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics are very different. There is a clear line between that and a poem. Something that has been a source of great excitement and delight for me is this idea that I get to rhyme. — Joanna Newsom
Music is also one of the great heart openers. Sometimes, you hear the lyrics of a song and you dance, laugh, smile, or perhaps even cry. — Michael Franti
Lyrical Quotes
When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it's composition. — Dexter Gordon
I said Yo Jay, I can rap. And I spit this rap that said I'm killin' ya'll *****s on this lyrical sh*t, mayonnaise colored benz, I push miracle whips. — Kanye West
If I had only one friend left, i'd want it to be you. — Paul Overstreet
I did try to come back and listen You never it..I didn't wish it But I did hear every answer ever question It's all about protection stil through the sunlight days I wait Track a ghost through the fog The sun is burning me And you come running out in the wind with me The ocean is your blanket. — Stevie Nicks
It's funny how the littlest things can make you feel larger than life; the right lyric, the most heartfelt melody, the clearest message. Love. — Alex Gaskarth
If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z. — Talib Kweli
When I'm lost in the rain, In your eyes I know I'll find the light to light my way And when I'm scared, losing ground When my world is going crazy You can turn it all around and when I'm down you're there Pushing me to the top You're always there, giving me all you've got — Christina Aguilera
Fleetwood Mac were really accessible musically, but lyrically and emotionally, we weren't so easy. And it was our music that helped us survive. But all of us were in pieces personally. — Mick Fleetwood
I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around. — Louise Bogan
Every now and then we find a special friend, who never lets us down, who understands it all, reaches out each time you fall, you're the best friend that I've found. — Jordan Hill
Writing Poetry Quotes
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it. — Matsuo Basho
At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music. — Satyajit Ray
Write, form a rhizome, increase your territory by deterritorialization, extend the line of flight to the point where it becomes an abstract machine covering the entire plane of consistency. — Gilles Deleuze
Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes. — Carl Sandburg
A poem is never finished, only abandoned. — Paul Valery
It was commonplace for colleagues to write comic poetry to each other, predicting the manner in which they might die. — Oliver Burkeman
The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in. — Dylan Thomas
I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky. — Sharon Olds
Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon. — Linton Kwesi Johnson
Sometimes I wish I was poetic and subtle. I write very bold and blunt and tell it like it is. — Pink
There's a fierce practicality and empiricism which the whole imaginative, lyrical aspect of poetry comes from. — David Whyte
I have so much of you in my heart. — John Keats
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough. — A. E. Housman
A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly artificial divisions which have no real being. — John Drinkwater
Poetry is a lyrical insinuation. Often, its melodic subtlety kisses the subconscious mind. — Masiela Lusha
Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do. — Stephen Sondheim
In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself. — Seamus Heaney
I am convinced that the first lyric poem was written at night, and that the moon was witness to the event and that the event was witness to the moon. For me, the moon has always been the very embodiment of lyric poetry. — Mary Ruefle
No one can threaten poetry. It's always been there, always will be. Humans need it to live: it has sustaining powers. How could we (anyone) get through adolescence without some form of song? Song is only a version of lyric poetry that is carried more by melody than by internal coherence and unity. but lyric and song - they are the same. — Gregory Orr
Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them. — Bob Dylan
I didn't come in and say: "I'm a singer." I came into the band as a second guitar player and a vocalist, but not the songwriter. I had been writing poetry for years, so I sort of had the nature of the words. I felt like no one else could sing my lyrics, so I took a crack at it. — Paul Banks
Religious poetry, civic poetry, lyric or dramatic poetry are all categories of man's expression which are valid only if the endorsement of formal content is valid. — Salvatore Quasimodo
He passes from lyric to epic poetry in order to speak about the world and the torment in the world through man, rationally and emotionally. The poet then becomes a danger. — Salvatore Quasimodo
We have certain rules for traditional lyric poetry in Korea. I twist my body, confused by what to say and how to act, facing these rules. Confronting traditional lyricism, I speak with a bare body without the tattoos of culture on it. — Kim Hyesoon
Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth. — Victor Hugo
Lyrical poetry is much the same an every age, as the songs of the nightingales in every spring-time. — Heinrich Heine
Logic , like lyrical poetry , is no employment for the middle-aged — John Maynard Keynes
I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets. — Diane Wakoski
It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose. — Boris Pasternak
To me, Doors fans were always the 16-year-old idiots at parties, getting stoned, and talking about how Morrison's lyrics were like poetry... like that was a deep thought. — Bruce McCulloch
A play's got to be a dramatic event, not a lyrical event. It's not music, it's not poetry, it's not dance, it's not narrative - it's dramaticit's about conflict. It's about forces coming together. — Romulus Linney
Paraphrase, in the sense of summary, is as indispensable to the novel-critic as close analysis is to the critic of lyric poetry. The natural deduction is that novels are paraphrasable whereas poems are not. But this is a false deduction because close analysis is itself a disguised form of paraphrase. — David Lodge
The kind of poetry I write, lyric poetry, I think is really concerned with intimacy, with mystery. That needn't be religious mystery, there are mysteries to do with everyday life. — Kevin Hart
Could we say that the short short is to other kinds of fiction somewhat as the lyric is to other kinds of poetry? The lyric does not seek meaning through extension, it accepts the enigmas of confinement. It strives for a rapid unity of impression, an experience rendered in its wink of immediacy. And so too with the short short. — Irving Howe
In mauve sea-orchids as in her striking earlier book Guardians of the Secret, Lila Zemborain brings into relationship the viscera of the body and the spill of the universe in tense compositions that blur distinctions between lyric and prose poetry, between science and eros. — Forrest Gander
The ethos and critique are of poetry, which becomes a rich dark with a phosphorescence of lyric as witness. — Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Publishing the lyric books, poetry or comics of other musicians I know. That's the thing I really want to break into! — Frank Iero
One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music. — Stephen Sondheim
My poetry is not lyric. The epigrams are lyric because they come from my youthful period of lyricism, but my other poetry is not lyric. — Ernesto Cardenal
How can one express the indefinable sensations that one experiences while writing an instrumental composition that has no definite subject? It is a purely lyrical process. It is a musical confession of the soul, which unburdens itself through sounds just as a lyric poet expresses himself through poetry...As the poet Heine said, 'Where words leave off, music begins.' — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
I don't think the nature of my poetry is satirical or even ironic, I think it's essentially lyrical but again I don't know if it's my position to say what my poetry is like. — Kenneth Koch
The author's conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement. — Ezra Pound
There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry. — Gyorgy Ligeti
I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything. — Maya Angelou
In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike. — Maya Angelou
Being able to say something lyrically, to say something that will do more than just be words, is really hard. It's easy to do when you're writing a chapter of a book or writing poetry, but it's really hard to do when you're confined to a melody line. — Nikki Sixx
Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page. — Taylor Swift
I have had much to learn from Sweden's poetry and, more especially, from her lyrics of the last generation. — Knut Hamsun
Poetry does so many different things, it's difficult to say anything definitive about its role, which of course varies from culture to culture. It can range from being stories of the tribe to the private lyric, to being as W.H. Auden said "the clear expression of mixed feelings" to nonsense verse. — Stephen Dunn
In Conclusion
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