Fleur Adcock Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. There are worse things than these miniature betrayals, committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things than not being able to sleep for thinking about them. It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

Fleur Adcock
I have a poem about macular degeneration. Which I won't read.

Fleur Adcock
All poets, all writers, are terrible parasites. We use people and experiences.

Fleur Adcock
I stopped writing poetry when I stopped smoking.... It was more complicated than that.

Fleur Adcock
Poetry is a search for ways of communication; it must be conducted with openness, flexibility, and a constant readiness to listen.

Fleur Adcock
I write in praise of the solitary act:
of not feeling a trespassing tongue
forced into one's mouth, one's breath
smothered, nipples crushed against the
ribcage, and that metallic tingling
in the chin set off by a certain odd nerve:
unpleasure.

Fleur Adcock
Perhaps relationships work more powerfully when there is absence and tension and a lot of heartache. I can't live with people.

Fleur Adcock
My verse forms are relatively traditional (traditions alter). In general they have moved away from strict classical patterns in the direction of greater freedom — as is usual with most artists learning a trade. It takes courage, however, to leave all props behind, to cast oneself, like Matisse, upon pure space. I still await that confidence.

Fleur Adcock
Somehow we manage it: to like our friends, to tolerate not only their little ways but their huge neuroses, their monumental oddness: "Oh well," we smile, "it's one of his funny days."

Fleur Adcock