Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.

Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.

So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.

The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.

Narcissism and the Confederate dead cannot be connected logically, or even historically; even were the connection an historical fact, they would not stand connected as art, for no one experiences raw history.

At twelve I was determined to shoot only For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all; I know at thirty-three that one must shoot As often as one gets the rare chance - In killing there is more than commentary.

We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.