To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
Robert Graves - Reply to questionnaire, "The Cost of Letters," Horizon
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
Robert Graves Quoted in The Observer [London] (6 December 1964)
Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties. The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
Robert Graves - Address, January 1960, to the Oxford University Philological Society. "Poetic Gold," Oxford Addresses on Poetry (1962). Graves had been awarded a gold medal for services to poetry by the National Poetry Society of America.
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
Robert Graves - Reply to questionnaire, "The Cost of Letters," Horizon
