It has always seemed to me that if you could talk about your work in fully-formed phrases, you wouldn't write it. The writing is the statement, you see, and it seems to me that the poem or the story or the novel you write is the kind of metaphor you cast on life.

I always say that one's poetry is a solace to oneself and a nuisance to one's friends.

Sociology, the guilty science, functions best by alarm.

Diplomacy is what is practiced after-the-fact. Never be too right too soon -- as any smart Uncle will tell you. The man who guesses what will happen will be blamed for it. No one will believe he has merely guessed.

It took most people a lifetime to join the human race.

The standard dreaming of a society has to be listened to.

When anything gets freed, a zest goes round the world.