The eyes of this dead lady speak to me For here was love, was not to be drowned out. And here desire, not to be kissed away. The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.

If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good.

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

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.

The flavors of the peach and the apricot are not lost from generation to generation. Neither are they transmitted by book learning.

Quiet this metal! Let the manes put off their terror, let them put off their aqueous bodies with fire. Let them assume the milk-white bodies of agate. Let them draw together the bones of the metal.