Ted Hughes quotes - page 2

I think it was Milosz, the Polish poet, who when he lay in a doorway and watched the bullets lifting the cobbles out of the street beside him realised that most poetry is not equipped for life in a world where people actually die. But some is. (Ted Hughes)
Show him every dawn & read to him endlessly. View quote
Ted Hughes
Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death. Who owns all of space? Death. View quote
Ted Hughes
There are certain things that are just impressive, aren't there? One stone can be impressive and the stones around it aren't. It's the same with animals. Some, for some reason, are strangely impressive. They just get into you in a strange way. Certain birds obviously have this extra quality that fascinates your attention. Obviously hawks have always done that for me, as a great many others have - not only impressive in themselves but also in that they've accumulated an enormous literature making them even more impressive. And crows too. Crows are the central bird in many mythologies. The crow is at every extreme, lives on every piece of land on earth, the most intelligent bird. View quote
Ted Hughes
He swayed in the strong wind that pressed against his back. He swayed forward, on the brink of the high cliff. And his right foot, his enormous iron right foot, lifted-up, out, into space, and the Iron Man stepped forward, off the cliff, into nothingness. View quote
Ted Hughes
Pike, three inches long, perfect Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold. Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin. View quote
Ted Hughes
Applause is the beginning of abuse. View quote
Ted Hughes
What's writing really about? It's about trying to take fuller possession of the reality of your life. View quote
Ted Hughes
Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering Drowning life and your effort to save yourself, Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil, Looking for something to give. View quote
Ted Hughes
The Bush administration doesn't particularly like public participation. It makes them look bad. View quote
Ted Hughes
No, the serpent did not Seduce Eve to the apple. All that's simply Corruption of the facts.Adam ate the apple. Eve ate Adam. The serpent ate Eve. This is the dark intestine.The serpent, meanwhile, Sleeps his meal off in Paradise- Smiling to hear God's querulous calling. (Ted Hughes)
The dreamer in her Had fallen in love with me and she did not know it. That moment the dreamer in me Fell in love with her and I knew it. View quote
Ted Hughes
There is no better way to know us Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood. View quote
Ted Hughes
Do as you like with me. I'm your parcel. I have only our address on me. Open me, or readdress me. View quote
Ted Hughes
It took the whole of Creation to produce my foot, my each feather: now I hold Creation in my foot. View quote
Ted Hughes
Many writers write a great deal, but very few write more than a very little of the real thing. So most writing must be displaced activity. View quote
Ted Hughes
Why do human beings need to confess? Maybe if you don't have that secret confession, you don't have a poem - don't even have a story. Don't have a writer. View quote
Ted Hughes
However it comes out - whether a design in a carpet, a painting on a wall, the shaping of a doorway - we recognize that medicinal element because of the instant healing effect, and we call it art. It consoles and heals something in us. View quote
Ted Hughes
I see now that when we met, my writing, like hers, left its old path and started to circle and search. View quote
Ted Hughes
Much of what we do at any level is a bit like that, I fancy. But hard to know which is which. View quote
Ted Hughes
Every poem that works is like a metaphor of the whole mind writing, the solution of all the oppositions and imbalances going on at that time. (Ted Hughes)
I've sometimes wondered if it wouldn't be a good idea to write under a few pseudonyms. Keep several quite different lines of writing going. Like Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet who tried four different poetic personalities. View quote
Ted Hughes
However rootedly national it may be, poetry is less and less the prisoner of its own language. View quote
Ted Hughes
We now give more serious weight to the words of a country's poets than to the words of its politicians - though we know the latter may interfere more drastically with our lives. View quote
Ted Hughes
No, until the revelation's actually published, the poet feels no release. View quote
Ted Hughes