Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing; the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear; and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them.

The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!

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

What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.

I believe the term modulation denotes in music the uninterrupted shift from one key to another: I do not know the term for change of rhythm without change of measure.

Dramatic experience is not logical; it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.