Billy Collins Quotes
I am increasingly attracted to restricting possibility in the poem by inflicting a form upon yourself. Once you impose some formal pattern on yourself, then the poem is pushing back. I think good poems are often the result of that kind of wrestling with the form.

Quotes to Explore
-
I think I've had the longest career of strength, focus, and still being able to sell records. I think I'm that guy. I'm still blessed with the opportunity to make music and pass out a message like, 'Life is good,' to the world.
-
I try to get in people's heads. My job is to get the ball, so if I'm talking trash to an O-lineman or quarterback or receiver, and they start thinking about me, that's good, because they aren't thinking about the game anymore.
-
I know from my own experience that great films and great actors can have a really big influence on you. There is a place for art in the world, and if you're lucky enough to be good at something and to keep being given work, it's not such a bad thing.
-
It's a question of not copying the masters, to look for something, good or bad, for oneself. To enter this liberated state of mind, one cannot copy the others.
-
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
-
When the divine vision is attained, all appear equal; and there remains no distinction of good and bad, or of high and low.
-
Growing up in San Diego, I can remember going with my brother to see bands like Pennywise and NOFX - good punk bands that were fast and tight.
-
Good comics gravitate to each other; you know who's your type of person by watching them onstage, hopefully.
-
Even in my darkest times I knew I had a good future ahead of me.
-
A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.
-
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.
-
When politicians offer you something for nothing, or something that sounds too good to be true, it's always worth taking a careful second look.
-
I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.
-
There is almost nothing more painful for a leader than seeing good people leave a growing organization, whether it's a priest watching a Sunday school teacher walk out the door or a CEO saying goodbye to a co-founder.
-
I've had so many hot, cheesy, corny loves of music in my life. I had a very intense Billy Joel period. So once you've really Joeled it up - there's some good periods of Joel; it's not all hot cheese. But I can't judge anyone else for their cheese. I've deep-sea dived in the Gouda.
-
I'm really into fashion, but I don't really spend that much on clothes. I manage to find everything I want at a good price.
-
Saturdays are set for antique shops. Williamsburg in Brooklyn has some good ones. I get in there and start meddling around with dusty boxes and rickety, worn-in stuff. I like it when I find something with someone else's name on it.
-
In some ways, Trump's large, national coalition defies easy characterization. He draws from a broad base of good people: kind folks who open their homes and hearts to people of all colors and creeds, married couples with happy homes and families who live nearby, public servants who put their lives on the line to fight fires in their communities.
-
I like to go from mainstream movies to more artsy films. I don't sign on for the money. Maybe I should, but I don't. There's always a good reason for doing something.
-
A good team, like a good show, comes into being when the separate individuals working together create, in essence, another separate higher entity - the team - the show - which is better than any of those individuals can ever be on their own.
-
And being as I'm somebody who loves movies like The Machinist, I also love going along to big mass entertainment movies. I get in the mood for all kinds of movies, and so I like to try each of them.
-
The best vision is insight.
-
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
-
I am increasingly attracted to restricting possibility in the poem by inflicting a form upon yourself. Once you impose some formal pattern on yourself, then the poem is pushing back. I think good poems are often the result of that kind of wrestling with the form.