Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I for one must get it out.

You know what this is, I suppose. Religious melancholia. Stop while there is time. If you dive, you dive into insanity.

My own eyes are not enough for me; I will see through those of others.

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

Even in this world of course it is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are most grown-up.

I gave up Christianity at about 14. Came back to it when getting on for 30. Not an emotional conversion; almost purely philosophical. I didn't want to. I'm not in the least a religious type. I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master; but since the facts seemed to be just the opposite, I had to give in.

God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.