Try an author, a thought, or a phrase in “quotes”.↑ ↓ Navigate · Esc Close

Type a word, saying or author to search.

Browse the library ↗

If poets often commit suicide, it is not because their poems are bad but because they are good. Whoever heard of a bad poet committing suicide? The reader is only a little better off. The exhilaration of a good poem lasts twenty minutes, an hour at most.Unlike the scientist, the artist has reentry problems that are frequent and catastrophic.

If poets often commit suicide, it is not because their poems are bad but because they are good. Whoever heard of a bad poet committing suicide? The reader is only a little better off. The exhilaration of a good poem lasts twenty minutes, an hour at most.Unlike the scientist, the artist has reentry problems that are frequent and catastrophic.

Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.

Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗
Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Walker Percy
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Walker Percy: life dates 1916 to 1990. Wikidata Q176909, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q176909 (accessed 2026-10-08).
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 36451; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.