It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.

Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.

The poet's discourse can be compared to the track of a charged particle through a cloud-chamber. An energised field of association and connotation, of overtones and undertones, of rebus and homophone, surround its motion, and break from it in the context of collision .. in Western poetry so much of the charged substance is previous poetry.

My father loved poetry and music. But deep in himself he thought teaching the finest thing a person could do.

To be a European is to try to negotiate morally, intellectually and existentially the opposing statements and praxis of the city of Socrates and the city of Isaiah.

More and more lower-middle-income families either live their lives in debt or leave the city altogether. The boom is strictly at the penthouse level.

The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light.