Those who ignore history's lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them ... they may be forced to die by them.

Gass once wrote: "Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it." Here is the essence of mankind's creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatozoa attacking an ovum. It might be argued that the Siamese twin infants of word/idea are the only contribution the human species can, will, or should make to the raveling cosmos.

There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.

Words are the light and sound of our existence, the heat lightning by which the night is illuminated.

This is every writer's nightmare - the sudden breakdown of meaning in the language that sustains and supports us.

It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters.

The life of a poet lies not merely in the finite language-dance of expression but in the nearly infinite combinations of perception and memory combined with the sensitivity to what is perceived and remembered.