Robert Frost Quotes

He thought that I was after him for a feather--- The white one in his tail: like one who takes everything said as personal to himself.

I heard someone say he [Carl Sandburg] was the kind of writer who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by being translated into another language.

O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow, Make the day seem to us less brief... Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst.

I do not see why I should e’er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Heaven gives its glimpses only to those not in position to look too close.

All those who try to go it sole alone, Too proud to be beholden for relief, Are absolutely sure to come to grief.

Poets need not go to Niagara to write about the force of falling water.

When I see birches bend to left and right... I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

I came from a very intellectual neighborhood. When we played cowboys and Indians as kids, I had to be Gandhi.

The best way for a person to have happy thoughts is to count his blessings and not his cash. Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

A voice said, Look me in the stars And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk, I don't stand still and look around On all the hills I haven't hoed, And shout from where I am, What is it? No, not as there is a time to talk. I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground, Blade-end up and five feet tall, And plod: I go up to the stone wall For a friendly visit.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

Any work of art must first of all tell a story.

I'm not a teacher, but an awakener.

Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.

The only way round is through.

The first thing I do in any town I come to is ask if it has a bookstore.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

Keep all ur troubles in ur own pocket. But, make sure that the pocket has a hole!

You, of course, are a rose-- But were always a rose.

All the fun is in how you say a thing.

Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.

The Armful For every parcel I stoop down to seize I lose some other off my arms and knees, And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns, Extremes too hard to comprehend at. once Yet nothing I should care to leave behind. With all I have to hold with hand and mind And heart, if need be, I will do my best. To keep their building balanced at my breast. I crouch down to prevent them as they fall; Then sit down in the middle of them all. I had to drop the armful in the road And try to stack them in a better load.

A poem begins with a lump in the throat

Now no joy but lacks salt That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.

The first thing I do in the morning is to make my bed and while I am making up my bed I am making up my mind as to what kind of a day I am going to have.

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by, Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

We get twitted now and then on how we made this country. Well, we took the whole business, of course. It's not just that corner that we took from Mexico. When we got it all together, we got a very shapely country-the best continental cut in all the world, between the two oceans and in the right temperature zone.

Diplomacy, n : 1. The patriotic art of lying for one's country. 2. The art of letting someone have your way. 3. The art of saying 'nice doggy' until you can find a rock. A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

The difference between a job and a career is the difference between forty and sixty hours a week.

An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.

A definite purpose, like blinders on a horse, inevitably narrows its possessor's point of view.

The sidelong glance is what you depend on.

I don't like to see things on purpose. I like them to soak in. A friend . . . asked me to go to the top of the Empire State Building once, and I told him that he shouldn't treat New York as a sight-it's feeling, an emotional experience. And the same with every place else.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard.

The only way out is through.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orch-ard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night.

Life is tons of discipline.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars—on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.

I was under twenty when I deliberately put it to myself one night after good conversation that there are moments when we actually touch in talk what the best writing can only come near. The curse of our book language is not so much that it keeps forever to the same set phrases . . . but that it sounds forever with the same reading tones. We must go out into the vernacular for tones that haven't been brought to book.

Hope is not found in a way out but a way through.

People who read me seem to be divided into four groups: twenty-five percent like me for the right reasons; twenty-five percent like me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the right reasons. It's that last twenty-five percent that worries me.

I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn't been.

For I have had too much Of apple-picking:I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.