Technique is the test of sincerity.

The serious artist must be as open as nature. Nature does not give all of herself in a paragraph. She is rugged and not set apart into discreet categories.

Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.

The artist is always beginning.

In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.

Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.

Better mendacities Than the classics in paraphrase! Some quick to arm, some for adventure, some from fear of weakness, some from fear of censure, some for love of slaughter, in imagination, learning later . . . some in fear, learning love of slaughter; Died some, pro patria, non "dulce" non "et decor" . walked eye-deep in hell believing in old men's lies, the unbelieving came home, home to a lie.