Billy Collins quote: "Poems, for me, begin as a social engagement. I want to establish a kind of sociability or even hospitality at the beginning of a poem. The title and the first few lines are a kind of welcome mat where I am inviting the reader inside."

Emily Dickinson never developed. She remained loyal to her persona and to that same little metrical ...
BILLY COLLINS

I'll listen to anything authentic whether it's bluegrass or gospel or blues.
BILLY COLLINS

I have a stack of those plastic card hotel room keys that I picked up on this latest book tour. It&#...
BILLY COLLINS

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselv...
BILLY COLLINS

I think if a poet wanted to lead, he or she would want the message to be unequivocally clear and fre...
BILLY COLLINS

I know my voice has a limited range of motion; I don't write dramatic monologues and pretend to ...
BILLY COLLINS

Poetry can do a lot of things to people. I mean it can improve your imagination. It can take you to ...
BILLY COLLINS

A lot of my poems either have historical sequences or other kinds of chronological grids where I'...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm not a claustrophobe, but you don't need to be to feel claustrophobic inside an MRI. It&#...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm easily frightened, and I've also come to realize that old Catholic guilt or remorse is e...
BILLY COLLINS

I really have a distaste for poets who announce themselves at 50 yards; you know, here he comes, you...
BILLY COLLINS

I don't write for an auditorium full of people. I don't write for the microphone; I write fo...
BILLY COLLINS

Some honor Cummings as the granddaddy of all American innovators in poetry and ascribe to him a dive...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm a great believer in poetry out of the classroom, in public places, on subways, trains, on co...
BILLY COLLINS

Discovering Samuel Beckett in college was a big deal for me. I realized you could be very funny and ...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm going through life's cycles at an alarmingly fast pace, but my persona has a Peter Pan q...
BILLY COLLINS

I think more people should be reading it but maybe fewer people should be writing it, ... there's an...
BILLY COLLINS

...pleasure, of course, is a slippery word.... Our pleasures ultimately belong to us, not to the ple...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm sure he was a wild man,
BILLY COLLINS

In a world where cultures and religions are recklessly facing off, Sholeh WolpÃƒÂƒÃ‚Â© writ...
BILLY COLLINS

Listeners are kind of ambushed... if a poem just happens to be said when they're listening to th...
BILLY COLLINS

I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company ...
BILLY COLLINS

One of the disadvantages of poetry over popular music is that if you write a pop song, it naturally ...
BILLY COLLINS

If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you're simply using a pen to r...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm trying to write poems that involve beginning at a known place, and ending up at a slightly d...
BILLY COLLINS

Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a differe...
BILLY COLLINS

Now that I'm older, a real source of interest is the ages of the dead, the number; the day is of...
BILLY COLLINS

Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. It's a way of enticing a reader into a poem so tha...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboa...
BILLY COLLINS

The life of Edward Estlin Cummings began with a childhood in Cambridge, Mass., that he described as ...
BILLY COLLINS

When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of i...
BILLY COLLINS

I am a nonparticipant of social media. I'm not much attracted to anything that involves the will...
BILLY COLLINS

I first came across 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' in college, with other anthologized poems b...
BILLY COLLINS

The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement. If you write a letter ...
BILLY COLLINS

A lasting marriage, they say, is one where the two reach for different sections of the Sunday paper....
BILLY COLLINS

The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A...
BILLY COLLINS

And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scen...
BILLY COLLINS

I have my Poetry 180 project, which I've made my main project. We encourage high schools, becaus...
BILLY COLLINS

I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warn...
BILLY COLLINS

In a world where cultures and religions are recklessly facing off, Sholeh Wolpé writes careful poem...
BILLY COLLINS

I love to move like a mouse inside this puzzle for the body, balancing the wish to be lost with the ...
BILLY COLLINS

In a world where cultures and religions are recklessly facing off, Sholeh Wolpé writes careful poem...
BILLY COLLINS

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the ...
BILLY COLLINS

I can see one of them clearly now, walking
along with a newspaper tucked under his arm.
he...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm happy to stick with my persona. There are themes of love lost and love regained, but the mai...
BILLY COLLINS

I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it...
BILLY COLLINS

Cummings' career as a writer - and a painter - was as wobbly as his love life. He tried his hand...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm very aware of the presence of a reader, and that probably is a reaction against a lot of poe...
BILLY COLLINS

The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times...
BILLY COLLINS

When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poe...
BILLY COLLINS

You trip over a word while carrying
a tray of vocabulary out to the pool
only to discover ...
BILLY COLLINS

Very few people have actually read Freud, but everyone seems prepared to talk about him in that Wood...
BILLY COLLINS

The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, 'What happens...
BILLY COLLINS

For most Americans, poetry plays no role in their everyday lives. But also for most Americans, conte...
BILLY COLLINS

To a poet, it's quite ruinous to have a poem distorted, out of shape, or squeezed, shall we say,...
BILLY COLLINS

When I write, I'm not trying to be funny. It's the way I look at the world.
BILLY COLLINS

Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the v...
BILLY COLLINS

When I was a young man, I understood that poetry was two things - it was difficult to understand, bu...
BILLY COLLINS

I learned snails don't have ears. They live in silence. They go slowly. Slowly, slowly in silenc...
BILLY COLLINS

Often people, when they're confronted with a poem, it's like someone who keep saying 'wh...
BILLY COLLINS

I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes...
BILLY COLLINS

There's something very authentic about humor, when you think about it. Anybody can pretend to be...
BILLY COLLINS

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If yo...
BILLY COLLINS

I feel like the secretary to the morning whose only/
responsibility is to take down its bright,...
BILLY COLLINS

I'm all for poetry catching up with technology, and just as there are iTunes, I think we should ...
BILLY COLLINS

...the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry...

BILLY COLLINS

Who is ready to settle for five minutes when three hours does nicely?
JACKIE COLLINS

Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection.
KIM COLLINS

I have inspiration and feelings of being alive most every day I live.
JUDY COLLINS

We work to create a new wave of feminism that is more inclusive. I want others to feel equal. It'...
PETRA COLLINS

I write about real people in disguise. If anything, my characters are toned down-the truth is much m...
JACKIE COLLINS

People are intrigued by fame, power and wealth and I think Hollywood is the only place where you get...
JACKIE COLLINS

Agents are essential, because publishers will not read unsolicited manuscripts.
JACKIE COLLINS

I have considered rap music stars, and there is one in my new book, Lovers and Players, and there is...
JACKIE COLLINS

Authors change publishers because it's like being married for a long time and suddenly you want ...
JACKIE COLLINS

Ideas are all around me. If I wasn't interested in them myself, I don't think anyone else wo...
JACKIE COLLINS

I write synopses after the book is completed. I can't write it beforehand, because I don't k...
JACKIE COLLINS

Brittany Murphy... who knows if she's going to be around. Kirsten Dunst, I think she's reall...
JACKIE COLLINS

The husbands, who sometimes have another family who's grown, are going, Now I can spend time wit...
JACKIE COLLINS

I have written 20 books, and each one is like having a baby. Writing is not easy; some people want t...
JACKIE COLLINS

Whatever you have a passion for, then you must do. If you want to write, write about something you k...
JACKIE COLLINS

I really fall in love with my characters, even the bad ones. I love getting together with them. They...
JACKIE COLLINS

I have this theory that people in Hollywood don't read. They read 'Vanity Fair' and then...
JACKIE COLLINS

My philosophy is, unless you're sick and need help, why bother?
JACKIE COLLINS

I don't believe in writing anything that I don't know about or haven't researched about ...
JACKIE COLLINS

I have visited Australia several times, and I always try to make a point of going to Melbourne becau...
JACKIE COLLINS

Do not copy my style! The first rule of writing is write about what you know, not what you think you...
JACKIE COLLINS

I write about the American dream: if you set your mind to do something, you can do it. My fans know ...
JACKIE COLLINS

If you want to achieve your dreams, you must follow them, and the best way to follow them is not to ...
JACKIE COLLINS

If immigration reform passes, it'll be a big victory for sanity - nobody really believes it'...
GAIL COLLINS

I prefer black music in general.
PHIL COLLINS

It used to bother me - having bigger, fuller brows. I even plucked them once so I'd fit in, but ...
LILY COLLINS

I think there's a lot of different ways to win. You've seen teams that win championships wit...
DOUG COLLINS

When the women's movement started in the 1960s, there was a vision of a future where women didn&...
GAIL COLLINS

It's amazing to see things that are suggested in the book fully developed and so brilliantly rea...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I actually do not believe that there are any collisions between what I believe as a Christian, and w...
FRANCIS COLLINS

Can I say that I think it should be against the law for one state to use taxpayer money to try to br...
GAIL COLLINS

Soaring prescription drug costs have placed a tremendous strain on family budgets. They have also im...
SUSAN COLLINS

When hired three years ago, I willingly accepted the challenge of leading the Bulls back to the type...
DOUG COLLINS

I might be in an airport, late or angry with a ticket person, and I'm going to sort of check mys...
STEPHEN COLLINS

Natural Texas politicians make terrible, terrible presidential candidates. Phil Gramm, I remember th...
GAIL COLLINS

Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Remember?" he asks. "This is where you kissed me."
So the heavy dose of morphling administered...
SUZANNE COLLINS

The Bushes were certainly part of Texas in their mind, but they didn't have the kind of politica...
GAIL COLLINS

I'm a fiend for costume jewellery and have countless pairs of rhinestone or diamante earrings, w...
JOAN COLLINS

Certainly Nancy Reagan had an extraordinary effect on her husband. I'm truly not sure that, say,...
GAIL COLLINS

It's been fascinating working on a set in New York. Just to be in the thick of it is really inte...
JESSICA COLLINS

I may like the Blizzard best, of all the songs I have written.
JUDY COLLINS

Both the 'Gregor' series and 'The Hunger Games' are what I call lightning-bolt ideas...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Yeah, because what it all boils down to is at the end of the day, we are all riding on the same boat...
BOOTSY COLLINS

In the 1960s, you had this booming economy, and you didn't really have enough men around to fill...
GAIL COLLINS

Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in co...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I was actually the one who decided to move to LA. Mom and I were driving on Sunset Boulevard during ...
LILY COLLINS

If there's a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who's trapped underground, ...
SUZANNE COLLINS

When I finish dressing before a night out and have put on all the accessories, I usually look at mys...
JOAN COLLINS

We were brash young fellows'. I was always hanging with the older crowd anyway. The musicians we...
BOOTSY COLLINS

I used to go over to Gene Kelly's house and play volleyball, and Paul Newman and Marlon Brando w...
JOAN COLLINS

My mind is changing all the time. I can't live in a space that has a fixed aesthetic. I just nee...
PETRA COLLINS

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest!
WILLIAM COLLINS

Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part, Nature in him was almost lost in art.
WILLIAM COLLINS

And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
WILLIAM COLLINS

To look into that persons eyes and find yourself so completely lost in another world, a world full o...
LILY COLLINS

The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest sp...
WILKIE COLLINS

We are liberated by the examples of the brave, the talented, and the successful if we allow ourselve...
TERESA COLLINS

I'm going to wake Peeta," I say.
"No, wait," says Finnick. "Let's do it together. Put our faces...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I turn and put my lips close to Peeta's and drop my eyelids in imitation... "He offered me sugar and...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I pull an arrow, whip the notch into place, and am about to let it fly when I'm stopped by the sight...
SUZANNE COLLINS

That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I'm free to act as desperately as I wish.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Katniss," Gale says softly.
I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wound...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Look, if you wanted to be babied you should have asked Peeta.
SUZANNE COLLINS

The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the pos...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Tick, tock.
SUZANNE COLLINS

It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I'm so sorry," I whisper. I lean forward and kiss him.
His eyelashes flutter and he looks at me...
SUZANNE COLLINS

So that's who Finnick loves, I think. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it...
SUZANNE COLLINS

We star-crossed lovers of District 12, who suffered so much and enjoyed so little the rewards of our...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Aim higher in case you fall short.
SUZANNE COLLINS

So I only say, "So what should we do with our last few days?"

"I just want to spend every...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I really can't think about kissing when I've got a rebellion to incite.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstaces are. If you die, and I live, there's no l...
SUZANNE COLLINS

The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. ...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I always channel my emotions into my work. That way, I don't hurt anyone but myself.
SUZANNE COLLINS

So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.
SUZANNE COLLINS

My nightmares are usually about losing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here.
SUZANNE COLLINS

You know, you could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.
SUZANNE COLLINS

You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Knowing it and seeing it are two different things.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Finnick?" I say, "Maybe some pants?"
He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for th...
SUZANNE COLLINS

And once we reach the city, my stylist will dictate my look for the opening ceremonies tonight anywa...
SUZANNE COLLINS

One more time? For the audience?" he says. His voice isn't angry. It's hollow, which is worse. Alrea...
SUZANNE COLLINS

My spirit. This is a new thought. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it suggests I'm a fighter....
SUZANNE COLLINS

And then he gives me a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I knew you'd kiss me."
"How?" I say. Because I didn't know myself.
"Because I am in pain,...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I've been in the arena. How comforting the presence o...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Katniss. I remember about the bread.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Delly lost her temper at Peeta over how he treated you. She got very squeaky. It was like someone st...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable.
SUZANNE COLLINS

At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.The hard thi...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Fire beats roses again.
SUZANNE COLLINS

In the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did fo...
SUZANNE COLLINS

You're alive," I whisper, pressing my palms against my cheeks, feeling the smile that's so wide it m...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I just...I just miss him. And I hate being so alone.
SUZANNE COLLINS

You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I'm not saying you s...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I had to do that. At least once.
SUZANNE COLLINS

No problem," Gale replies. "I wake up ten times a night anyway."
"To make sure Katniss is still...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Because I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don't want to miss any of...
SUZANNE COLLINS

All those months of taking it for granted that Peeta thought I was wonderful are over. Finally, he c...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Stay with me.

Always.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pl...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss," says Peeta. "Even if my mother isn't a healer."
I'm j...
SUZANNE COLLINS

No. Now, shut up and eat your pears.
SUZANNE COLLINS

You have a... remarkable memory."
"I remember everything about you. You're the one who wasn't p...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distr...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and...
SUZANNE COLLINS

What about Gale?"
"He's not a bad kisser either," I say shortly.
"And it was okay with bo...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Oh, Peeta, Don't make me sorry I restarted your heart.
SUZANNE COLLINS

There's a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to y...
SUZANNE COLLINS

But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a...
SUZANNE COLLINS

At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. "Your favorite colour . . . it's green?"
SUZANNE COLLINS

She's not here," I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. "She's not here. You can hiss all you like. You...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink i...
SUZANNE COLLINS

They'll either want to kill you, kiss you, or be you.
SUZANNE COLLINS

That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire ...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I think....you still have no idea. The effect you can have.
SUZANNE COLLINS

I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there's no relief in waking.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do. Es...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Are you, are you coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Stra...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Ally." Peeta says the words slowly, tasting it. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancee. Target. Mutt...
SUZANNE COLLINS

I clench his hands to the point of pain. "Stay with me."
His pupils contract to pinpoints, dial...
SUZANNE COLLINS

There are much worse games to play.
SUZANNE COLLINS

Some walks you have to take alone.
SUZANNE COLLINS

You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in y...
SUZANNE COLLINS

Poems, for me, begin as a social engagement. I want to establish a kind of sociability or even hospitality at the beginning of a poem. The title and the first few lines are a kind of welcome mat where I am inviting the reader inside.

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Billy Collins

Poems, for me, begin as a social engagement. I want to establish a kind of sociability or even hospitality at the beginning of a poem. The title and the first few lines are a kind of welcome mat where I am inviting the reader inside.

Billy Collins

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