Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one's immortality... and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.

No lifetime is long enough for those ... who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing.

Poets are the mad midwives to reality. They see not what is, nor what can be, but what must become.

Mobs have passions, not brains.

We are all eaters of souls.

Its hard to die. Harder to live

Fate and victory shift ... now this way, now that way -- like a line of unarmored men under a hail of enemy arrows.