Robert Pinsky

“I think art is not an ornament or refinement at the fringes of human intelligence, I think it's at the center. It's at the core.”

“Poetry is not easy. Or should I say, real poetry is not easy.”

“To me, writing is a matter of voice. I think like that. The expression I sometimes use to myself is 'actual song.' That what I do is somewhere on the line between speaking to you as I am now and actual song. And the things I love when I say one of those poems to myself - it's a little bit like singing, it's a little bit like speaking.”

“Autobiography is a genre notorious for falsehood.”

“The last thing a young artist should do in poetry or any other field is think about what's in style, what's current, what are the trends. Think instead of what you like to read, what do you admire, what you like to listen to in music. What do you like to look at in architecture? Try to make a poem that has some of those qualities.”

“The best argument for teaching poetry is to put a three-year-old or a four-year-old and read Dr. Seuss, or Robert Louis Stevenson, and to feel how the child and you are engaging in something that's really basic to the animal, which is passing on in these rhythmic ways, something that came from somewhere.”

“מֵעַל חֲנוּת הַמַּמְתַּקִּים מִתְעוֹרְרִים יַחַד, תַּחַת הָאֶדֶן אֲנַחְנוּ שׁוֹמְעִים אֶת הַצִּפֳּרִים מִתְעוֹרְרוֹת.”

“בַּקָּהָל הַשֵּׁמוֹת שֶׁנִּנְטְשׁוּ חַיִּים, הַחוֹף מְחַכֶּה לְסִירַת הַצְּלָלִים שֶׁלִּי.”

“בְּמִלְחֶמֶת הָעוֹלָם שֶׁיֵּשׁ אוֹמְרִים שֶׁמֵּעוֹלָם לֹא נִגְמְרָה.”

“צֹרֶךְ הוּא הַטַּקְטִיקָה שֶׁלִּי, נִתּוּק הוּא הָאַסְטְרָטֶגְיָה שֶׁלִּי.”

“חוֹלֵף עַל פְּנֵי עֵינֶיהָ הַשּׁוֹפְטוֹת רוֹאוֹת־כֹּל.”

“I think my first experience of art, or the joy in making art, was playing the horn at some high-school dance or bar mitzvah or wedding, looking at a roomful of people moving their bodies around in time to what I was doing. There was a piano player, a bass player, a drummer, and my breath making the melody.”

“If I live near a dancer or a painter, or a clarinet player comes from my neighborhood, I take some pleasure in that, feel a little more as if I come from someplace in particular.”

“The wonderful 17th Century poet, Robert Herrick, wrote a poem entitled, 'To Live Merrily and to Trust to Good Verses.' Easy to say, Robert Herrick; not always easy to do. But it's a good slogan, I think.”

“I'm far from immune to the American, perhaps historically male, prejudice toward practical and physical competence; I hope I've also considered that prejudice enough to have some distance from it.”

“For an American, there's no automatic place where people love the art of poetry. There's not a social class that considers poetry its property the way in some countries there's a snob value to the art.”

“Art will not solve your problems. It will not enable you to live merrily.”

“Poetry is a vocal art for me - but not necessarily a performative one. It might be reading to oneself or recalling some lines by memory.”

“This is one of the great human mysteries: why do works of art about bad things such as loss and deprivation make us feel good?”

“I love form, but I'm not interested in forms. I've never written a sonnet or villanelle or sestina or any of that. For me, it's a kind of line. It's a rhythm. It's something musical.”