Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

The critic who doesn't make a personal statement, in remeasurements he himself has made, is merely an unreliable critic. He is not a measurer but a repeater of other men's results. KRINO, to pick out for oneself, to choose. That's what the word means.

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.

America, my country, is almost a continent and hardly yet a nation.

It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.

Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture.

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.