Quotes from William Jay Smith

The Toaster] A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red sits at my elbow and toasts my bread. I hand him fat slices, then one by one he hands them back when he sees they are done.

The Girl in the Black Raincoat" Thinking of you this evening, I think of mystery; I think of umbrellas of crystal Shading a cinnamon sea; I think of swallow-tailed shadows Enveloping history; And the past becomes the future, And the present is yet to be; And life is a rain-swept mirror Through which perpetually A girl with bright hair flowing, Dappled dark coat blowing, Into the unknown, knowing Walks with me.

I believe that poetry should communicate.

For every artist, experience is never complete until it has been reproduced in creative work.

As any parent, teacher, or librarian knows, there is no richer experience than to see children's faces light up at the suspense of a new tale or the surprise of a new poem. The uninhibited joy with which they listen is surely akin to that of adult audiences of old around campfire and hearth.

To Tennessee Williams we owe a special debt. In a tragic age, he has transformed loneliness by naming it for us, suffered sordidness with beauty, graced poor hurt lives with love and pity.

A fresh and vigorous weed, always renewed and renewing, it will cut its wondrous way through rubbish and rubble.

I have published so many books in so many years. I can't complain about any lack of attention. But I've never been placed as a Southern writer, which I really am. So I was happy finally to be published by someone in the South.

I still use a typewriter from time to time, but because I can't type as well as I used to, I really don't use one very much.

I have always used a great variety of verse forms, especially in my poetry for children. I believe that poetry begins in childhood and that a poet who can remember his own childhood exactly can, and should, communicate to children.

It was the enchantment of spoken verse that led me to write for children.

To the poet, his travels, his adventures, his loves, his indignations are finally resolved in verse, and this, in the end becomes his permanent, indestructible life.