It's partly the fault of the institutions of education. But it's partly the decision to be relieved of responsibility. Literature is simply the most focused form of the demands on the evolution of the species. It imposes a certain responsibility, moral, ethical and esthetic responsibility, and the species simply doesn't want to oblige.

No matter under what circumstances you leave it, home does not cease to be home. No matter how you lived there - well or poorly.

Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.

The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.

Russian talk of political evil is as natural as eating.

Poetry is not only the most concise way of conveying the human experience; it also offers the highest possible standards for any linguistic operation.

I am quite prepared to die here [in NY]. It doesn't matter at all. I don't know better places, or perhaps if I do I am not prepared to make a move.