4 J. D. Salinger Quotes on Poetry

J. D. Salinger quotes on poetry

10. 'I don't know. Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions'.

40. It naturally follows that the creature you love next best is the person - the God-lover or God-hater (almost never, apparently, anything in between), the saint or profligate, moralist or complete immoralist - who can write a poem that is a poem.

41. Extremes, though, are always risky and ordinarily downright baneful, and the dangers of prolonged contact with any poetry that seems to exceed what we most familiarly know of the first-class are formidable.

42. The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.