There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight

It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself.

Artists are the antennae of the race.

That text is known to them that have the patience to read it, possibly one one-hundredth of one percent of the denizens. They forget it, all save a few Western states. I think somebody in Dakota once read it. The Constitution.

Poetry must be as well written as prose.

I should consent to breed under pressure, if I were convinced in any way of the reasonableness of reproducing the species. But my nerves and the nerves of any woman I could live with three months, would produce only a victim... lacking in impulse, a mere bundle of discriminations. If I were wealthy I might subsidize a stud of young peasants, or a tribal group in Tahiti.

You have been second always. Tragical? No. You preferred it to the usual thing: One dull man, dulling and uxorious, One average mind- with one thought less, each year.