Good writing is full of surprises and novelties, moving in a direction you don't expect.

The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.

It is in the capacity to love, that is to SEE, that the liberation of the soul from fantasy consists. The freedom which is a proper human goal is the freedom from fantasy, that is the realism of compassion. What I have called fantasy, the proliferation of blinding self-centered aims and images, is itself a powerful system of energy, and most of what is often called 'will' or 'willing' belongs to this system. What counteracts the system is attention to reality inspired by, consisting of, love.

The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait.

for most of us the space between 'dreaming on things to come' and 'it is too late, it is all over' is too tiny to enter.

Upon the demon-ridden pilgrimage of human life, what next I wonder.

... when caught unawares I usually tell the truth, and what's duller than that?