Quotes By Author: ROBERT FROST

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get the meaning by glances. But they are bad readers because they miss the best part of what a good writer puts into his work.”

“Where had I heard this wind beforeChange like this to a deeper roar?What would it take my standing there for,Holding open a restive door,Looking down hill to a frothy shore?Summer was past and day was past.Somber clouds in the west were massed.Out in the porch’s sagging floor,leaves got up in a coil and hissed,Blindly struck at my knee and missed.Something sinister in the toneTold me my secret must be known:Word I was in the house aloneSomehow must have gotten abroad,Word I was in my life alone,Word I had no one left but God.”

“Two such as you with such a master speedCannot be parted nor be swept awayFrom one another once you are agreedThat life is only life forevermoreTogether wing to wing and oar to oar”

“I’ve given offense by saying I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”

“A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.”

“But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.”

“A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.”

“La strada non presaDue strade divergevano in un bosco d’autunnoe dispiaciuto di non poterle percorrere entrambe,essendo un solo viaggiatore, a lungo indugiaifissandone una, più lontano che potevofin dove si perdeva tra i cespugli.Poi presi l’altra, che era buona ugualmentee aveva forse l’aspetto miglioreperché era erbosa e meno calpestatasebbene il passaggio le avesse rese quasi uguali.Ed entrambe quella mattina erano ricoperte di foglieche nessun passo aveva anneritooh, mi riservai la prima per un altro giornoanche se, sapendo che una strada conduce verso un’altra,dubitavo che sarei mai tornato indietro.Lo racconterò con un sospiroda qualche parte tra molti anni:due strade divergevano in un bosco ed io -io presi la meno battuta,e questo ha fatto tutta la differenza.”

“GATHERING LEAVESSpades take up leavesNo better than spoons,And bags full of leavesAre light as balloons.I make a great noiseOf rustling all dayLike rabbit and deerRunning away.But the mountains I raiseElude my embrace,Flowing over my armsAnd into my face.I may load and unloadAgain and againTill I fill the whole shed,And what have I then?Next to nothing for weight,And since they grew dullerFrom contact with earth,Next to nothing for color.Next to nothing for use.But a crop is a crop,And who’s to say whereThe harvest shall stop?”

“Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.”

“Nor is there wanting in the pressSome spirit to stand simply forth,Heroic in it nakedness,Against the uttermost of earth.The tale of earth’s unhonored thingsSounds nobler there than ‘neath the sun;And the mind whirls and the heart sings,And a shout greets the daring one.”

“Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?”

“The way a crowShook down on meThe dust of snowFrom a hemlock treeHas given my heartA change of moodAnd saved some partOf a day I had rued.”

“A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”

“We ran as if to meet the moon.”