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My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.

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It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.

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Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

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The office of poetry is not to make us think accurately, but feel truly.

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The greatest poem is not that which is most skillfully constructed, but that in which there is the most poetry.

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Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

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Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

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Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.

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Talent is like a faucet; while it is open, you have to write. Inspiration? - a hoax fabricated by poets for their self-importance.

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The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows.

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