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Peter Porter Quotes

1929–2010 Australia

Peter Neville Frederick Porter (16 February 1929 – 23 April 2010) was an Australian-born poet and critic who lived for most of his adult life in Britain. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2002, and the Royal Society of Literature made him a Companion of Literature in 2007.

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Random Peter Porter quote

8 quotes

Somewhere at the heart
of the universe sounds the
true mystic note: Me.

The Last of England (1970)

A professional
is one who believes he has
invented breathing.

The Last of England (1970)

In the New World, happiness is enforced.

Language of the liberal dead speaks
From the soil of Highgate, tears
Show a great water table is intact.
You cannot leave England, it turns
A planet majestically in the mind.

The Last of England (1970)

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold
for which I thank the Paddington and Westminster
Public Libraries.

The Last of England (1970)

In Australia
Inter alia,
Mediocrities
Think they’re Socrates.

"A Tale of Two Pieties", in The Chair of Babel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) p. 51.

We cannot know what John of Leyden felt
Under the Bishop's tongs – we can only
Walk in temperate London, our educated city,
Wishing to cry as freely as they did who died
In the Age of Faith. We have our loneliness
And our regret with which to build an eschatology.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Peter Porter (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.