#prose

It is not certain whether the effects of totalitarianism upon verse need be so deadly as its effects on prose. There is a whole series of converging reasons why it is somewhat easier for a poet than a prose writer to feel at home in an authoritarian society.[...]what the poet is saying- that is, what his poem "means" if translated into prose- is relatively unimportant, even to himself. The thought contained in a poem is always simple, and is no more the primary purpose of the poem than the anecdote is the primary purpose of the picture. A poem is an arrangement of sounds and associations, as a painting is an arrangement of brushmarks. For short snatches, indeed, as in the refrain of a song, poetry can even dispense with meaning altogether. ↗

— George Orwell

#literature #orwell #poet #poetry #prose

Afghanistan had collapsed and everyone's life now lies broken at different levels within the rubble. ↗

— Nadeem Aslam

#prose #war #life

Prose is architecture and the Baroque age is over. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#hemingway #minimalism #prose #writing #age

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse. ↗

— Robert Morgan

#decision #instead #interested #made #more

Poetry is its own medium; it's very different than writing prose. Poetry can talk in an imagistic sense, it has particular ways of catching an environment. ↗

— Story Musgrave

#different #environment #medium #own #particular

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#conversational #criticism #essay #even #fiction

He convinced me that if we're going to have honest government that you can't leave it up to the crooks and that honest people have to get involved in government. So I did. I got involved as a criminal prosecutor with the U. S. Justice Department. ↗

— Bill Scott

#criminal #crooks #department #did #get

I've written a lot of prose. I just haven't published it. ↗

— Patti Smith

#i #just #lot #prose #published

I was raised in a Bronx public housing project, but studied at two of the nation's finest universities. I did work as an assistant district attorney, prosecuting violent crimes that devastate our communities. ↗

— Sonia Sotomayor

#attorney #bronx #communities #crimes #devastate

As one who was a prosecutor for many years, I can tell you that having a tape recording of interrogations would help everybody. It would make clear if there had been improper pressure exerted on a defendant or witness, and it would also protect the interrogating officer from false claims that such pressure had been brought to bear. ↗

— Eliot Spitzer

#bear #been #brought #claims #clear