Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.

Do you know what constitutes a great poet? He is a person without shame, incapable of blushing. Ordinary fools have moments when they go off by themselves and blush with shame; not so the great poet.... If you really have to quote someone, quote a geographer; that way you won't give yourself away. (p 44)

The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest - who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came.

One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word.

I have had much to learn from Sweden's poetry and, more especially, from her lyrics of the last generation.

And love was creation's source,creation's ruler; but all love's ways are strewn with blossoms and blood, blossoms and blood.

Rather than admire the mediocre great men over whom passersby nudge each other in awe, I venerate the young, unknown geniuses who die in their teens, their souls shattered - delicate, phosphorescent glowworms that one must see to know they really did exist.