Howard Nemerov Quotes

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Howard Nemerov

Profession : Poet

Birth : February 29, 1920

Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it.

Howard Nemerov

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

Howard Nemerov

Shakespeare tells the same stories over and over in so many guises that it takes a long time before you notice.

Howard Nemerov

The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case.

Howard Nemerov

The nice thing about the Bible is it doesn't give you too many facts. Two an a half lines and it tells you the whole story and that leaves you a great deal of freedom to elaborate on how it might have happened.

Howard Nemerov

The spirit world doesn't admit to communicating with me, so it's fairly even.

Howard Nemerov

We're not in love with Literature all the time - especially when you have to teach it every day.

Howard Nemerov

When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats.

Howard Nemerov

When modern writers gave up telling stories, they gave up the greatest thing we had.

Howard Nemerov

When Robert Frost was alive, I was known as the other new England poet, which is to be barely known at all.

Howard Nemerov

When you write it doesn't occur to you that somebody could think different from what you do.

Howard Nemerov

Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.

Howard Nemerov

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.

Howard Nemerov

Obvious enough that generalities work to protect the mind from the great outdoors; is it possible that this was in fact their first purpose?

Howard Nemerov

For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.

Howard Nemerov