John Wain Quotes

John Wain offers wry, literary reflections on poetry, literature and community that feel like a lively chat over drinks.

9 quotes

1. The lesson is that dying men must groan; And poets groan in rhymes that please the ear.

2. Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.

3. This book - amber-clear, cool and with a good head - deserves a thoughtful swig even from people who never drink.

4. How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar!

5. There, at the centre, are the artists who really form the consciousness of their time; they respond deeply, intuitively to what is happening, what has happened, and what will happen, and their response is expressed in metaphor, in image and in fable.

6. The cinema is - in Jean Cocteau’s famous words - ‘a dream that can be dreamt by many people at the same time’.

7. I have nothing to say. And I am saying it. That's poetry.

8. “The high shelf Where you stacked the bad thing, hoping for calm, Broke. It rolled down. It follows you to the end.”

9. “Speak your mind, but ride a very fast horse!!”