Quotes on Milton

Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.

Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.

Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be, There's brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think: Look into the pewter pot To see the world as the world's not.

I think drag is universal, no matter who does it. I mean, yeah, I am homosexual, but I think everybody likes to toy with their image. I love those guys. I love Milton Berle and Flip Wilson and all those people.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

The choices a writer makes within a tradition - preferring Milton to Moliere, caring for Barth over Barthelme - constitute some of the most personal information we can have about him.

And when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains,-alas! too few.

I would say that Mickey Mouse has a greater influence on the American public than Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Rabelais, Shostakovitch, Lenin, and/or Van Gogh. Which says 'What?' about the American Public. Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.

It would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, as portrayed by Milton.

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue_x000D_ _x000D_ That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold_x000D_ _x000D_ Which Milton held.

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.