The central fact of my life has been the existence of words and the possibility of weaving those words into poetry.

I know of a wild region whose librarians repudiate the vain superstitious custom of seeking any sense in books and compare it to looking for meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's hands . . . They admit that the inventors of writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but they maintain that this application is accidental and that books in themselves mean nothing. This opinion - we shall see - is not altogether false.

Personally, I am a hedonistic reader; I have never read a book merely because it was ancient. I read books for the aesthetic emotions they offer me, and I ignore the commentaries and criticism.

We accept reality so readily - perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.

Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.

I believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government.

We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.