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Poets are the mad midwives to reality. They see not what is, nor what can be, but what must become.”

— Dan Simmons Hyperion (1989)

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More quotes by Dan Simmons

“Gold,” says the Consul, knowing that this is the only syllable that has held its power over the ages.

The Fall of Hyperion (1990)

Doing a life study while drunk and in the process of being seduced is never a formula for quality art.

The Fall of Hyperion (1990)

The human mind gets used to strangeness very quickly if it does not exhibit interesting behavior.

The Rise of Endymion (1997)

Human philosophy tends to shake down into values which might be categorizes as intellectual, religious, moral, and aesthetic.

The Fall of Hyperion (1990)

If the universe has any soul, it is the soul of irony.

The Rise of Endymion (1997)

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There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

George Chapman Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

Michael Faraday

Attribution

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