Howard Nemerov Quotes

Obvious enough that generalities work to protect the mind from the great outdoors; is it possible that this was in fact their first purpose?

By Howard Nemerov

For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application -- why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.

By Howard Nemerov

The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present -- henceforth? -- the subject to which you are condemned. The first thought is this: fear. I cannot write because I am afraid. Of what?

By Howard Nemerov

Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.

By Howard Nemerov

The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present -- henceforth? -- the subject to which you are condemned.

By Howard Nemerov

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

By Howard Nemerov

Mostly the thought and the verse come inseparably. In my poem Poetics, it's as close as I come to telling how I do it.

By Howard Nemerov

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

By Howard Nemerov

A chronicle is very different from history proper.

By Howard Nemerov