Billy Collins Quotes

United States, Poet
March 22, 1941

William James Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. In 2016, Collins retired from his position as a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York after teaching there almost 50 years. Collins is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. Collins was considered as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. As of 2018, he is a teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.

Discovering Samuel Beckett in college was a big deal for me. I realized you could be very funny and very dark at the same time.

Billy Collins
- Time
- Funny
- College
Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. It's a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things can take place later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.

Billy Collins
- Funny

When I write, I'm not trying to be funny. It's the way I look at the world.

Billy Collins
- World
- Trying
- Funny
I think my poems are slightly underrated by the word 'accessible.'

Billy Collins
I'm easily frightened, and I've also come to realize that old Catholic guilt or remorse is easily stimulated.

Billy Collins
- Catholic
I just reached the point where plot-driven novels don't hold my interest because I don't care about the fate of characters anymore - whether Emily marries Tom or not, that kind of thing.

Billy Collins
- Fate
I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboards, on cereal boxes.

Billy Collins
- Pretty
- Poetry
I have my Poetry 180 project, which I've made my main project. We encourage high schools, because that's really where, for most people, poetry dies off and gets buried under other adolescent pursuits.

Billy Collins
- People
- High
- Poetry

The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times' obit writer who redesigned its traditional form and added a measure of stylistic elegance.

Billy Collins
- Up
I don't write for an auditorium full of people. I don't write for the microphone; I write for the page.

Billy Collins
- People
I'll listen to anything authentic whether it's bluegrass or gospel or blues.

Billy Collins
Cummings' career as a writer - and a painter - was as wobbly as his love life. He tried his hand at playwriting, satirical essays, and even a dance scenario for Lincoln Kirsten.

Billy Collins
- Life
- Career
- Hand
I think it's good not to make demands on the reader too early. But as the poem goes on, I want the journey of the poem to lead into some interesting places.

Billy Collins
- Good
- Interesting
- Journey
If an artist is driven primarily by social responsibility, I think the art probably suffers because, again, just as leadership has a rather defined end point or purpose, social responsibility would seem to have a very clear moral context.

Billy Collins

When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of imagery, I said, 'Gee, I probably could do that. So let me try that.'

Billy Collins
- Lyric
Poems are perfect for something to listen to while you're walking around because they don't take very long.

Billy Collins
- Long
- Perfect
- Walking