Frost QuotesBest-loved lines from Frost The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. The best way out is always through. Ah, when to the heart of man was it ever less than a treason to go with the drift of things to yield with a grace to reason and bow and accept at the end of a love or a season. Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favour. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. I never dared be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old. Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me. We love the things we love for what they are. Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. And were an epitaph to be my story, I’d have a short one ready for my own. We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair. Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee. And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me. You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular…. The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat. The world has room to make a bear feel free; The universe seems cramped to you and me. Good fences make good neighbours. A man must partly give up being a man with womenfolk. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting…. Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.” The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended—and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on. The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended—and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended. I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed. I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things. I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn. Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat. Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second. A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair. |
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