Quotes by Billy Collins

Billy Collins

…pleasure, of course, is a slippery word…. Our pleasures ultimately belong to us, not to the pleasure’s source.

Courses

Pleasure

Source

A motto I’ve adopted is, if at first you don’t succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

Firsts

Motto

Succeed

A sentence starts out like a lone traveler heading into a blizzard at midnight, tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face, the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him.

Midnight

Tails

Wind

A trouble with poetry is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry, the sense you get in a poem that the poet takes for granted an interest on the reader’s part in the poet’s autobiographical life, in the poet’s memories, problems, difficulties and even minor perceptions. I try to presume that no one is interested in me. And I think experience bears that out. No one’s interested in the experiences of a stranger – let’s put it that way. And then you have difficulty combined with presumptuousness, which is the most dire trouble with poetry.

Memories

Perception

Thinking

All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time.

Green

Peas

Wanted

And strangely enoughthe only emotion I ever feel, is what the beaver must feel, as he bears each stick to his hidden construction, which creates the tranquil pond and gives the mallards somewhere to paddle, and the pair of swans a place to conceal their young

Giving

Ponds

Swans

As soon as I start to write I’m very aware, I’m trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I’m writing – and I think that this is important for all writers – I’m trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth. I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I’ll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.

Thinking

Two

Writing

Bugs Bunny is my muse.

Bugs

Bunnies

Creativity

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.

Bird

Light

Offering

Death is what makes life fun.

Fun

Fun Life

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Able

Air

Answers

Believe

Bird

Book

Brain

Bread

Brother

Bugs

Bunnies

Character

Children

Circles

Clever

Clouds

Courses

Creativity

Cutting

Dark

Degrees

Departure

Differences

Different

Distraction

Dna

Doe

Doors

Easy

Eye

Facts

Fall

Firsts

Fishing

Flames

Fun

Fun Life

Funny Things

Games

Giving

Green

Gun

Happy Kid

Heart

Home

Humorous

Imagination

Insane

Inspiration

Interesting

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Billy Collins

Billy Collins

…pleasure, of course, is a slippery word…. Our pleasures ultimately belong to us, not to the pleasure’s source.

A motto I’ve adopted is, if at first you don’t succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

A sentence starts out like a lone traveler heading into a blizzard at midnight, tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face, the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time.

And strangely enoughthe only emotion I ever feel, is what the beaver must feel, as he bears each stick to his hidden construction, which creates the tranquil pond and gives the mallards somewhere to paddle, and the pair of swans a place to conceal their young

Bugs Bunny is my muse.

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.

Death is what makes life fun.

Get Social with TBU

Topics by Billy Collins

Popular Tools

The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

Menu

Menu