Howard Nemerov quotes

Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time. (Howard Nemerov)
A teacher is a person who never says anything once. View quote
Howard Nemerov
Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree. View quote
Howard Nemerov
The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I do insist on making what I hope is sense so there's always a coherent narrative or argument that the reader can follow. View quote
Howard Nemerov
Absolute power corrupts absolutely; and if you surrender your personal responsibility to a government which promises to take care of you, they will only take care of themselves. View quote
Howard Nemerov
It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page. View quote
Howard Nemerov
When Robert Frost was alive, I was known as the other new England poet, which is to be barely known at all. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I liked the kid who wrote me that he had to do a term paper on a modern poet and he was doing me because, though they say you have to read poems twice, he found he could handle mine in one try. View quote
Howard Nemerov
Shakespeare tells the same stories over and over in so many guises that it takes a long time before you notice. (Howard Nemerov)
[T]eaching has been for me an education (Lord knows what it has been for my students). View quote
Howard Nemerov
A lot happens by accident in poetry. View quote
Howard Nemerov
When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem. View quote
Howard Nemerov
Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it. View quote
Howard Nemerov
When modern writers gave up telling stories, they gave up the greatest thing we had. View quote
Howard Nemerov
When you write it doesn't occur to you that somebody could think different from what you do. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I have a plot, but not much happens. View quote
Howard Nemerov
The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case. (Howard Nemerov)
I like all my children, even the squat and ugly ones. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem. View quote
Howard Nemerov
For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again. View quote
Howard Nemerov
I think there was a revolution in poetry, associated chiefly with Eliot and Pound; but maybe it is of the nature of revolutions or of the nature of history that their innovations should later come to look trivial or indistinguishable from technical tricks. View quote
Howard Nemerov

Howard Nemerov

Occupation: American Poet
Born: February 29, 1920
Died: July 5, 1991
Quotes count: 41

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