Billy Collins Quotes
When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.
Quotes to Explore
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Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
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I do always have a wall up. But I feel by doing it, I keep myself safe.
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I own a Hangman jumper, which looks like a scarf, but that's what it's called. It cost a fortune, but it was worth it.
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I love church buildings, particularly cathedrals, and I like living in spaces that remind me of music or evoke that creative energy.
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It's healthy to have interests besides books.
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I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it; so was my brother.
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I may have more than one friend with benefits. It's very healthy for the heart. I think no matter how old you are - and I am pretty up there in terms of numbers - I think you should do whatever makes you happy.
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The older you get, the more comfortable you become with yourself, and you accept what you have physically.
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I wasn't interested at all in doing a documentary. I was not a public figure.
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It is fantastic to be found in a foreign country.
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By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man.
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I like cinema. I am very fond of it. But from time to time I feel like having some time on my own.
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My grandpa would come in with water and flick it on our faces at 6 A.M. and be like, 'If you don't get up to feed the horses, you don't get to ride them.' We'd get up.
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While I have never been more excited about SecondMarket, I have chosen to move on from day-to-day management of the private company/fund business so that I can focus 100% of my energy on our digital currency business.
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I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer.
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Anyone who is awake and aware knows that these quote-unquote bathroom bills or any legislation discriminating against LGBTQ citizens is horrible.
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Even a beautiful piece of work can be overshadowed, destroyed, by something else.
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Whether it's just walking down the street to try to go to a movie, go to dinner, something like that, there are always a few people that recognize you.
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The advocates of retaliatory wars will continue to assume a much simpler reality with their hoary oppositions: Religious and secular, backward and enlightened, free and unfree. But if we are to admit how deeply and irrevocably interconnected our world is, then we must find new ways to break the cycle of counter-productive violence.
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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.
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Fortunately for me, I had a father who didn't let us get away with anything. You were taught respect, and you were taught to be humble. That has a lot to do with how I am now, because I'm still scared of my dad.
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'If some of the current politicians had been around a few thousand years ago,' she’d said, 'we never would have gotten out of Africa. Boats cost too much.'
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It is important that you appreciate that the workplace must be a place of empowerment, but the empowerment must not only be connected to the job that you do.
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When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.
