T. S. Eliot on poetry

The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

It’s strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Robert Frost1874–1963

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963Reflections on the Psalms

Every poem can be considered in two ways⁠—as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963A Preface to Paradise Lost