73 Quotes by Howard Nemerov

I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.

Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it.

Shakespeare tells the same stories over and over in so many guises that it takes a long time before you notice.

The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case.

We're not in love with Literature all the time - especially when you have to teach it every day.

When modern writers gave up telling stories, they gave up the greatest thing we had.

I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem.

I liked the kid who wrote me that he had to do a term paper on a modern poet and he was doing me because, though they say you have to read poems twice, he found he could handle mine in one try.

Occasionally a student writer comes up with something really beautiful and moving, and you won't know for years if it was an accident or the first burst of something wonderful.