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The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.

Robert Graves

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Robert Graves
Age: 90 †
Born: 1895
Born: July 24
Died: 1985
Died: December 7
Literary Critic
Military Personnel
Mythographer
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Theatre Critic
Translator
Robert von Ranke-Graves
Robert Von Ranke-Graves
Robert Ranke Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves
Invocation
Poetry
Exaltation
Religious
Excites
Use
Muse
Experience
Mixed
Presence
Horror
Function

More quotes by Robert Graves

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I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and - if he is lucky enough - know the love of an honest woman.
Robert Graves
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The gas-cylinders had by this time been put into position on the front line. A special order came round imposing severe penalties on anyone who used any word but accessory in speaking of the gas. This was to keep it secret, but the French civilians knew all about the scheme long before this.
Robert Graves
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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.
Robert Graves
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Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door.
Robert Graves
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Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight
Robert Graves
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I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.
Robert Graves
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One smile relieves a heart that grieves.
Robert Graves
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Well, we've been lucky devils both And there is no need for a pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough.
Robert Graves
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There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.
Robert Graves
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Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.
Robert Graves
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There should be two main objectives in ordinary prose writing: to convey a message and to include in it nothing that will distract the reader's attention or check his habitual pace of reading - he should feel that he is seated at ease in a taxi, not riding a temperamental horse through traffic.
Robert Graves
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No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.
Robert Graves
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A banker warned the British poet Robert Graves that one could not grow rich writing poetry. He replied that if there was no money in poetry, there was certainly no poetry in money, and so it was all even.
Robert Graves
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Marriage, like money, is still with us and, like money, progressively devalued.
Robert Graves
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Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut it out.
Robert Graves
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As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.
Robert Graves
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So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read.
Robert Graves
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Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.
Robert Graves
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There is one story and one story only.
Robert Graves
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Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.
Robert Graves