Democracy, like any non-coercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits.

We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.

Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversations.

It takes two to write a letter as much as it takes two to make a quarrel.

Democracy, like any non-coercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits.

The inspired scribbler always has the gift for gossip in our common usage he or she can always inspire the commonplace with an uncommon flavor, and transform trivialities by some original grace or sympathy or humor or affection.

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.