I may say that I think greed about poetry is the only permissible greed - it is, indeed, unavoidable.

Art is magic, not logic. This craze for the logical spirit in irrational shape is part of the present harmful mania for uniformity.

If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?

The poet is the complete lover of mankind.

By 'happiness' I do not mean worldly success or outside approval, though it would be priggish to deny that both these things are most agreeable. I mean the inner consciousness, the inner conviction that one is doing well the thing that one is best fitted to do by nature.

The reason why Matthew Arnold, to my feeling, fails entirely as a poet (though no doubt his ideas were good - at least, I am told they were) is that he had no sense of touch whatsoever. Nothing made any impression on his skin. He could feel neither the shape nor the texture of a poem with his hands.

I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.