Find out what you do best, and then don't do it.

- James Dickey

Poetry makes possible the deepest kind of personal possession of the world.

- James Dickey

What I want is to be willing to fail rather than stagnate.

- James Dickey

I don’t believe that a reviewer or a critic can really criticize well unless he can praise well.

- James Dickey

It takes an awful lot of time for me to write anything. I have endless drafts, one after another; and I try out 50, 75, or a hundred variations on a …

- James Dickey

So much destruction in modern war takes place miles and miles away from the source of the destruction, the human being who has caused it.

- James Dickey

I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.

- James Dickey

I once had the nerve to ask Picasso the question, 'What is art?' He answered, 'Art is a lie which makes us see the truth.

- James Dickey

A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.

- James Dickey