English Verse Quotes

#1. The iambic line, with its characteristic forward movement from short to long, or light to heavy, or unstressed to stressed, is the quintessential measure of English verse.

James Fenton

#2. BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters - the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

Ambrose Bierce

#3. The glorious Dryden, refiner and purifier of English verse, did less for rhyme than he did for metre.

H.P. Lovecraft

#4. and they still control the world, and you are not in my arms.

Adrienne Rich

#5. The iambic pentameter owes its pre-eminence in English poetry to its genius for variation. Good blank verse does not sound like a series of identically measured lines. It sounds like a series of subtle variations on the same theme.

James Fenton

#6. We stayed mute and disloyal
because we were afraid

I would have touched my fingers
to where your breasts had been
but we never did such things

Adrienne Rich

#7. First, do not betray yourself. Second, do not betray those you lead.

John Wooden

#8. I've never considered myself a leading man, don't look like one, don't want to be one.

Brion James

#9. Law cannot stand aside from the social changes around it.

William J. Brennan Jr.

#10. Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not.

Martin Luther

#11. I realize that I'm generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care.

Dave Barry

#12. When I meet a new person, I am on the lookout for signs of what he or she is loyal to. It is a preliminary clue to the sense of belonging, and hence of his or her humanity.

Haniel Long

#13. At four lines, with the quatrain, we reach the basic stanza form familiar from a whole range of English poetic practice. This is the length of the ballad stanza, the verse of a hymn, and innumerable other kinds of verse.

James Fenton

#14. That's tough. Anything I can do?"
"Just stay in play as my backup."
I nearly swerved the car off the road. "I'm sorry - your backup?"
"You know, in case it doesn't work out with Fallon."
"And what about Ethan?"
Jeff chuckled. "I just figured he was your backup for me.

Chloe Neill

#15. It has been estimated that even in the absence of net investment, the mere substitution of modern machinery for worn-out equipment in the United States would cause an annual productivity increase of approximately 1.5 percent.

Paul A. Baran

#16. What is a Lamb of God? People use this phrase.
I don't know.
I watch my sister, fingers straying absently about her mustache,
no help there.

Anne Carson

#17. Verse comedy is interesting to me because of the challenge of writing in rhymed couplets, which is not a form that's usually amenable to English, yet to me it gives great possibility for comedy.

David Ives

#18. how can I reconcile this passion
with our modesty

your calvinist heritage
my girlhood frozen into forms

how can I go on this mission
without you

you, who might have told me
everything you feel is true?

Adrienne Rich

#19. We aren't cool and never will be.

Chris Martin

#20. Controlling my temper is important, ... Sometimes it's hard, but I try.

Miguel De Cervantes

#21. To achieve peace, think of peace.

Debasish Mridha

#22. Religion is the only solid Base of morals and that Morals are the only possible Support of free governments.

Gouverneur Morris

#23. Ray please I never lied to her. When need arose I may have used words that lied.

Anne Carson

#24. My therapist told me that I over-analyze everything. I explained to him that he only thinks this because of his unhappy relationship with his mother.

Michel Templet