Don Paterson Quotes

#1. Falling and flying are near identical sensations, in all but one final detail.

Don Paterson

#2. After a long period of reflection, he decided that he was in fact right yet again.

Don Paterson

#3. Critics all have this idea that authors inhabit another dimensional realm, right up to their first smack in the mouth - which feels to them quite miraculous, being their sex-dream come true.

Don Paterson

#4. We turn from the light to see.

Don Paterson

#5. Fate's book, but my italics.

Don Paterson

#6. The aphorism is already a shadow of itself.

Don Paterson

#7. No fury more righteous than that of a sinner accused of the wrong sin.

Don Paterson

#8. I can see exactly what not to do at the moment. No doubt through the usual process of elimination I'll arrive at my favourite strategy of total paralysis.

Don Paterson

#9. Inconveniently, books are all the pages in them, not just the ones you choose to read.

Don Paterson

#10. The poem, in a sense, is no more or less than a little machine for remembering itself ... Poetry is therefore primarily a commemorative act.

Don Paterson

#11. Imagine your shadow burning off the page / As the dear world and the dead word disengage

Don Paterson

#12. Mediocre art is far worse than bad art. Bad art does not waste our time.

Don Paterson

#13. Poetry, unlike music, is a meta-art, and relies upon non-physical structures for the production of its effects. In its case, the medium is syntax, grammar and logical continuity, which together form the carrier-wave of plain sense within which its deeper meanings are broadcast.

Don Paterson

#14. Anything that elicits an immediate nod of recognition has only reconfirmed a prejudice.

Don Paterson

#15. We could easily have evolved eyelids thick enough to keep out the light, but we still need to see the shadows fall across them. We're not yet safe.

Don Paterson