Billy Collins Quotes
For most Americans, poetry plays no role in their everyday lives. But also for most Americans, contemporary painting or jazz or sculpture play no role either. I'm not saying poetry is singled out as a special thing to ignore.
Quotes to Explore
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I am enjoying my face changing, as well as realizing that at the same time, as you get older, the machine isn't as well-oiled as it was.
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I clearly believe a lot more than some of my coalition colleagues - Tories - in redistribution and using the tax system for that purpose. I also believe in the government having an active role in the economy, which is having an industrial strategy. I'm not a believer in laissez-faire.
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Being American and being an outsider at the same time, it's a perspective I often bring to a character.
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I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.
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I've always been extremely physical. I was a gymnast for 15 years, and then I was a dancer for nine, so I was kind of looking for these parts. But we have a tendency in Denmark not to do many action films.
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When I learned that flour pound for pound has as many calories as sugar, and that when eating pasta you're basically eating cake, I was size 23, and my neck was restricting my breathing, and so I got on a microbiotic diet and got myself an exercise bike.
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The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear. Love liberates. Fear imprisons.
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I wasn't interested at all in doing a documentary. I was not a public figure.
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When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it's because he's so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.
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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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Pete Seeger is a modest, unassuming, cheerful, and kind-natured man. He's a good folk singer, if you can stand folk singing. And he's such an excellent banjo player that you almost don't wish you had a pair of wire cutters.
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There are actors who aren't on the cover of magazines but still decide what work they want and when they want it. I want a family one day. So I dream of really being able to decide when to work and when not to.
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Americans have grown impatient with the relentless politicizing of every area of life.
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I sang for my family. And I think probably the first time I sang and got paid for it, I was about 6 or 7.
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As far as expectations go, you can never work for expectations. You have to work against them.
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There are certain things that can be asked that get me excited. It's never a thing where I think I'm too good, I'm just the type of person who likes to be enlightened. I don't like to go through the motions.
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I'm not being outspoken or pro or con abortion.
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When ye are prepared for a thing, the opportunity to use it presents itself.
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I think of the French polymath Boris Vian (1920-1959) who burned the candles of his creative genius at every end he could light. And I think of the way Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) hammered with
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Sylvia Plath, Rumi, there's a lot of spoken word poets who do a really incredible job putting their spoken work into page poetry - that's what I strive to do.
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I am often asked why I started to write poetry. The answer is that my motivation sprang from a visceral need to creatively articulate the experiences of the black youth of my generation, coming of age in a racist society.
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Poetry is about as much a 'criticism of life' as red-hot iron is a criticism of fire.
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We have taken a giant step forward in correcting some of the misconceptions people have about the church. I think that we've made a lot of friends.
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For most Americans, poetry plays no role in their everyday lives. But also for most Americans, contemporary painting or jazz or sculpture play no role either. I'm not saying poetry is singled out as a special thing to ignore.
