Man is at the nadir of his stregth when the Earth, the seas, the mountains are not in him, for without them his soul is unsourced, and he has no images by which to abide.

The newspaper has debauched the American until he is a slavish, simpering, and angerless citizen; it has taught him to be a lump mass-man toward fraud, simony, murder, and lunacies more vile than those of Commodus or Caracalla.

Look at this poet William Carlos Williams: he is primitive and native, and his roots are in raw forest and violent places; he is word-sick and place-crazy. He admires strength, but for what? Violence! This is the cult of the frontier mind.

A painter can hang his pictures, but a writer can only hang himself.

The earnings of a poet could be reckoned by a metaphysician rather than a bookkeeper.

Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

Perhaps Samuel Johnson was a great man; he was certainly a drumbling one.