quotes

'Like many poets, his verbal sensitivity is in inverse proportion to real human sympathy, a sublimated selfishness evident in his
life as much as his work.' (Terry Eagleton on Lawrence Durrell)

'Burns was not wholly at his ease in Edinburgh, caught between his natural inclinations and the demands of polite society, between his democratic instincts and the need to flatter those who could make his way easier.' (Allan Massie)

'Lorca was a firm believer in the value of the anonymous village poet who 'extracts in three or four lines all the rare complexity of the highest sentimental moments in the life of man'.' (J.L.Gili)

'Most of Hogg's best poetry was written when his object was to please himself rather than Edinburgh. Thus his many excellent songs make no concessions to the taste of genteel society but are rather written in the spirit of the traditional folk songs he knew as a child in Ettrick Forset.' (Douglas S. Mack on James Hogg)