Looking back over a decade one sees the ideal of a university become a myth, a vision, a meadow lark among the smoke stacks. Yet perhaps it is there at Princeton, only more elusive than under the skies of the Prussian Rhineland or Oxfordshire; or perhaps some men come upon it suddenly and possess it, while others wander forever outside. Even these seek in vain through middle age for any corner of the republic that preserves so much of what is fair, gracious, charming and honorable in American life.

I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.

If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.

my imagination persisted in sticking horrors into the dark- so I stuck my imagination into the dark instead, and let it look out at me.

It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.

Who would not be pleased at carrying lamps helpfully through the darkness?

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.