W.N. Herbert > Quotes

“Giving voice to others can be the most effective way we can find of expressing what we want to say.”
― W N Herbert, Writing Poetry

“Dictionaries are the biggest spell books”
― W N Herbert

“When my grandmother makes a mistake, she says 'Ah tell a leh'... But I feel the same whenever I use conversational English picked up after fourteen years at Oxford. Or whenever I lapse into a full-throated Dundonian Scots at home and someone announces, 'Ye've no lost yir accent'. Herbert speak with forked tongue.”
― W.N. Herbert, Don't Ask Me What I Mean: Modern Poets in their Own Words