Selling Poetry Quotes & Sayings

His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.
His large head was pink, his brown hair thin and dry. His face was babyish in slumber, despite his wrinkles and the red spectacle-dents on the slopes of his nose. He was not fat but he was exceedingly well fed; his cheeks were pads, and the unroughened hand which lay helpless upon the khaki-colored blanket was slightly puffy. — Sinclair Lewis

I once tried hawking my own book around the pubs in the hope that, like the Salvation Army, I too could sell to the cerebrally relaxed. It was a disaster. I had beer thrown over me for being a) a nuisance, b) not as good as Wordsworth and c) a nancy for writing poetry in the first place. — Peter Finch

Every Artist's Decision; the line between selling, and selling out — Branch Isole

That old man over there
Is selling trinkets made of stones
That old woman the entire world
In a map without any hole! — Avijeet Das

I forced myself out of a love
that I knew would only end fatally.
I forced myself into the dark,
until I could no longer remember
how to feel with my eyes.
I forced my mind to believe
that someone would hold you
better than I ever could.
But the worst part was selling my soul
for a price I know I'll never repay,
and forcing myself into love
with someone who wasn't you — Jl

My ideas tend to be either really big in terms of like, the logistics, or really small. — Cary Fukunaga

I guess the quality that makes one write poetry keeps one from selling it. — Louise Closser Hale

Bullshit is as common as lame poetry and more unavoidable than
those armed men who are there to protect you from
Bullshit like this is straight from the lab and god loves you and
the government doesn't want war and it's the best movie since
Repo Man and if i stopped drinking the world might end anyway
and breathanarianism and immortality for anything besides

Bullshit that's as common as murder and jailhouse tattoos selling
bunk drugs in paint chip hotels where a cigarette burn on
the mattress tells you more about death than a splatter movie
festival. — Sparrow 13 Laughingwand

Not that the writers weren't good. I believe in those books and those writers very much. It's just that in the climate it's really hard to keep the lights on and the doors open when you're selling poetry and literature that appeals to a fringe audience. — Henry Rollins

I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry. But I'm here now, so you can't die," he said, his voice finally breaking. "Don't you see how rude that would be, when I've come so far? — V.E Schwab

elders serve as conduits between the divine realm and the mundane world, making the abstract truths of spirituality accessible to the community by embodying them in their everyday behavior. — Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

I began writing early - very, very early ... I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals; I was involved in school plays; I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, 'Now I'm a writer.' I've always been a writer. — Wole Soyinka

Everyone lives by selling something. — Robert Louis Stevenson

In all animation, if it's done quickly, you'll know it. And if you're very slow and careful with it, it's going to look a little more beautiful. It's just compressing time into seconds. — Henry Selick

When you realize my best selling books are 'Owl Moon,' the 'How Do Dinosaur' books, and 'Devil's Arithmetic,' how can the public make sense of that! I have fans who think I only write picture books or only write SF and fantasy. I have fanatics of my poetry and are stunned to find out I write prose, too! — Jane Yolen

She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she'd been born with it or baptized it, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of 'beauty' and 'twilight' and cloaked herself in it. She made her living selling words. — Isabel Allende

If you want to be a top athlete you have to be a little bit wild, not be an accountant. — Renato Canova

Spread happiness among people. Ultimately, that's the most valuable thing. Whatever amount of money you have, if you do not have peace, it is of no use. — Rashmi Bansal

Daemonic compulsiveness can kill as easily as it can save.
The true novelist must be at once driven and indifferent. Van
Gogh never sold a painting in his life. Poe came close with
poetry and fiction, selling very little. Drivenness only helps if
it forces the writer not to suicide but to the making of splendid
works of art, allowing him indifference to whether or not the
novel sells, whether or not it's appreciated. Drivenness is trouble
for both the novelist and his friends; but no novelist, I
think, can succeed without it. Along with the peasant in the
novelist, there must be a man with a whip. — John Gardner