We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.

What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

This desire to fashion, to shape, a self and a life has all but gone from a contemporary culture whose emphasis, paradoxically enough, is so much on self.

The immature artist imitates. The mature artist steals.

Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.

Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.