“A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody else.”
“A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody else.”
Mark Forsyth
“It is much harder than you might think to show people your bottom.”
Mark Forsyth, The Servant: A Short Story“We all know that scientific words need an obscure classical origin to make them sound impressvie to those who wouldn't know an idiopathic craniofacial erythema if it hit them in the face.”
Mark Forsyth“I had to go outside. I had to let the element of chance in.”
Mark Forsyth, The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Wanted“The glamour's off. Almost any question you ask can be answered. It's only the questions that you didn't know to ask that remain, dancing the can-can behind your back. The unknown unknowns.”
Mark Forsyth, The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Wanted“You can spend all day trying to think of some universal truth to set down on paper, and some poets try that. Shakespeare knew that it's much easier to string together some words beginning with the same letter.”
Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase“Shakespeare was not a genius. He was, without the distant shadow of doubt, the most wonderful writer who ever breathed. But not a genius. No angels handed him his lines, no fairies proofread for him. Instead, he learnt techniques, he learnt tricks, and he learnt them well.”
Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase“A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody else.”
Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase“Genius, as we tend to talk about it today, is some sort of mysterious and combustible substance that burns brightly and burns out. It's the strange gift of poets and pop stars that allows them to produce one wonderful work in their early twenties and then nothing. It is mysterious. It is there. It is gone.”
Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase“A ham sandwich is better than nothing. Nothing is better than eternal happiness. So eternal happiness is beaten by a ham sandwich.”
Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase“The Latin word for sausage was botulus, from which English gets two words. One of them is the lovely botuliform, which means sausage-shaped and is a more useful word than you might think. The other word is botulism.Sausages may taste lovely, but it's usually best not to ask what's actually in them. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it was a sausage-maker who disposed of the body.”
Mark Forsyth, The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English LanguageAll in One Creative & Marketing Platform to tell stories at scale
