Because language is the carrier of ideas, it is easy to believe that it should be very little else than such a carrier.

Innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement: The arts cannot exist without them.

... how much of our inner substance is it good for us to give to public griefs? The whole modern tendency to agonize over the suffering of the entire globe is surely something new.

Perhaps this very instant is your time.

It is not possible, for a poet, writing in any language, to protect himself from the tragic elements in human life.... [ellipsis in source] Illness, old age, and death--subjects as ancient as humanity--these are the subjects that the poet must speak of very nearly from the first moment that he begins to speak.

Your work is carved out of agony as a statue is carved out of marble.

The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?