Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

To most of us the future seems unsure. But then it always has been; and we who have seen great changes must have great hopes.

It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.

In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.

The Thames is a wretched river after the Mersey and the ships are not like Liverpool ships and the docks are barren of beauty ... it is a beastly hole after Liverpool; for Liverpool is the town of my heart and I would rather sail a mudflat there than command a clipper out of London

Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.

In the power and splendor of the universe, inspiration waits for the millions to come. Man has only to strive for it. Poems greater than the Iliad, plays greater than Macbeth, stories more engaging than Don Quixote await their seeker and finder.