Publishing a volume of poetry is like dropping a rose-petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. The Sun Dial . Poetry is the parent of superstition. The History of the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge , 1667. Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
All poets are mad.
Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense. Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music. No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Boswell's Life of Johnson . 5 April 1776.