Jean Racine

 

A tragedy need not have blood and death; it’s enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.

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Tessa Ransford

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The word poet in Greek means maker, or makar in medieval Scots when the poets were known as the makars. The 20th century German philosopher, Heidegger, claimed that 'the voice of thought must be poetic' because poetry is not words about or referring to things, rather it is the thought and the thing bound together. This is a feature of all creative work: the thought and the material are bound together, enhancing and transforming one another into something new. 

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The essentials of all creativity are in the life cycle: love, work, celebration and death

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If a thought is a tune, then a poem must be a chord. This is one of the reasons why people think poems are hard to understand. To be asked to 'explain' a poem is like being asked to sing a chord.

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To be creative is natural to human child/being. It is to ask questions that release more questions; to cross-fertilise ideas; to bind together thought and thing. 

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Beauty bound up with truth is what we can make from the materials of earth when we approach the eternity in them.

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Art and culture in the Irish and Scottish Gaelic communities were not a luxury. There were valued equally with cattle and gold. They were vital--life-giving, something without which all else would be in vain. They were for memory and vision; past and future suspended in the present. 

 

Rachel Naomi Remen

 

Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.

 

Leonard Rexroth

 

I’ve had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book.

 

Anne Rice

 

To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.

 

Adrienne Rich

 

It's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.

 

Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe.

 

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false naming of real events.

 

Samuel Richardson

 

Calamity is the test of integrity.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke

 

If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.

 

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.    

 

I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.

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Joan Rivers

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You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.

 

Wess Roberts

 

Anyone who doesn’t make mistakes isn’t trying hard enough.

 

Omar Z. Robles

 

Great works of art, I believe, all share one thing, and that is that they are supported by context. It can’t just be beautiful, or shocking for the sake of it. Great artworks captivate you because you can, in one way or another, identify with it.

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Will Rogers

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I know worrying works because none of the stuff I worried about ever happened.

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A Man only learns by two things, one is reading, and the other is association with smarter people.

 

Ten men in the country could buy the world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.

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We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

 

Mothers are the only race of people that speak the same tongue. A mother in Manchuria could converse with a mother in Nebraska and never miss a word.

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​The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.

 

Ray Romano

 

I don’t think I’m old, but I know I’m not young.

 

Rone

 

I think what it takes to make a great piece of art is to connect with the observer on an emotional or personal level. A bit of mystery can let the observer interpret the work based on their own experiences and let them identify with it. If you spell it all out there can only be one way to interpret the work, and I think what makes great art is when everyone experiences it differently.

 

Philip Roth

 

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

 

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach—that it makes no sense.

 

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.

 

I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don’t need that question answered.

 

You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.

 

Eleanor Roosevelt

 

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

 

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

 

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes . . . and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

 

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.

 

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

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No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

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No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

    

Theodore Roosevelt

 

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

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Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders. Do not let selfish men and greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.

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Dilys Rose

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For a writer it can be a real bonus to know your destination, not just in terms of story but in terms of mood as well. 

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Still, doubt is part and parcel of writing and, perversely perhaps, tend to spur me on.

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Wendy Rose

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Few writers of any ethnicity are destined to be remembered in the mainstream of literary history.

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I have always swung back and forth between alienation and relatedness.

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Cristina Peri Rossi

 

When your foot rests on the unknown, your body quivers with metaphysical excitement. 

 

Only in imagination or dreams do the people we love occupy their proper places.

 

We have all been exiled from something or someone. I think this is a human condition.

 

The essence of some stories lies precisely in this: they do not change, but remain like citadels or lighthouses facing the irresistible assault of time.the essence of some stories lies precisely in this: they do not change, but remain like citadels or lighthouses facing the irresistible assault of time

 

Joseph Roux

 

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

 

J.K. Rowling

 

Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have “essential” and “long overdue” meetings on those days.

 

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

 

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.

 

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and, therefore, the foundation of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

 

Many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are.

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Wilma Rudolph

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Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The Potential for greatness lives within each of us.

 

Rumi

 

Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.

 

We have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green.

 

Lovers never meet. They’re in each other all along.

 

Salman Rushdie

 

A poet's work is to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.

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John Ruskin

 

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.