128 Quotes by Alice Oswald

I try not to invent; I try simply to translate the weird language of the natural world. And I'm not into absolute ownership of things.

Most spiders eat and remake their webs every night.

I much preferred Latin to Greek. I loved the language being such a pattern that you could not shift a word without the whole sentence falling to pieces.

One of the rules of Greek lament poetry is that it mustn't mention the dead by name in case of invoking a ghost. Maybe the 'Iliad,' crowded with names, is more than a poem. Maybe it's a dangerous piece of the brightness of both this world and the next.

That is the best instruction you could ever give a poet: whether you're examining a bad line in a poem or a bad motive for action, keep well your repining - meaning, don't ignore the honest muttering in your head.

Wind ought to be a verb or an adverb. It isn't really anything. It's a manner of movement of warmth and cold: a kind of information system of the air.

At each moment, a poem might grow into a totally different shape. It is not so much like working in a garden. It is more as if you remade the garden every day.

I like Patti Smith's lyrics, and sometimes think I could be influenced by them. But she has a kind of cool that's beyond me.

When I was 16, I was taught by a wonderful teacher who let me ignore the Greek syllabus and just read Homer.