Andrew Motion 20 Dreamy Quotes

Andrew Motion 20 Dreamy Quotese

When Keats says: 'Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses', what he means is that we don't necessarily believe what a poem is saying if it comes out and tells us in an absolutely head-on, in-your-face way; we only believe it to be true if we feel it to be true.

— Andrew Motion

I'm an early bird, partly because I like to have some quiet time and partly because by 9am emails begin arriving, the phone starts ringing and I have dragons to kill of one sort or another.

— Andrew Motion

I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am.

— Andrew Motion

I shall try to write a poem that is about the moment but doesn't betray things that are true to me as a poet.

— Andrew Motion

I've found a different way to scent the air: already it's a by-word for despair.

— Andrew Motion

I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable.

— Andrew Motion

But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others.

— Andrew Motion

I've always thought that the balance between the side of my mind that knows what it is doing and the side that really hasn't got a clue has to be carefully maintained because if you write too knowingly then you get chilly, and if you write too unknowingly you write bollocks that nobody else can understand.

— Andrew Motion

I am a vigilant monarchist. I want to see things evolve. The direction the monarchy seems to be moving in - towards a more mainland-European model - is one I would feel sympathetic about.

— Andrew Motion

The best public poems aren't necessarily those that go at the subject like a bull at a gate.

— Andrew Motion

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

— Andrew Motion

I don't want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people's feelings a lot of the time.

— Andrew Motion

Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding, there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground, poets in schools, football clubs, zoos.

— Andrew Motion

I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme.

— Andrew Motion

Each sudden gust of light explains itself as flames, but neither they, nor even bombs redoubled on the hills tonight can quite include me in their fear.

— Andrew Motion

I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don't make enough money.

— Andrew Motion

You see the names of places roundabout? They're mine now, and I've turned them inside out.

— Andrew Motion

These places, and the ancient things you know, You won't know soon. I'm working on it now.'

— Andrew Motion

Keats writes better about poems than anybody I've ever read. The things that he says about what he wants his own poems to be are the ideals that I share.

— Andrew Motion

I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems which are sentimental.

— Andrew Motion

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