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The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple – to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.

— Craig Raine

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More quotes by Craig Raine

Great writers arrive among us like new diseases – threatening, powerful, impatient for patients to pick up their virus, irresistible.

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
And some are treasured for their markings –
They cause the eyes to melt
Or the body to shriek without pain.

I used to carry a copy of Ulysses with me everywhere just in case I was knocked down by a bus. It seemed more important than having clean underwear.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
That snores when you pick it up.
If the ghost cries, they carry it
To their lips and soothe it to sleep
With sounds. And yet, they wake it up
Deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

All Craig Raine quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Craig Raine (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.