Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

I took to wearing a black tie known as the Ascot, with long drooping ends. I had seen pictures of painters, sculptors, poets, wearing this style of tie.

I stayed away from mathematics not so much because I knew it would be hard work as because of the amount of time I knew it would take, hours spent in a field where I was not a natural.

I cried over beautiful things, knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

Poetry is the establishment of a metaphorical link between white butterfly-wings and the scraps of torn-up love-letters.

Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg. And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years,and passengers ask the conductor- What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.