But childhood prolonged, cannot remain a fairyland. It becomes a hell.

... 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.

Up from the bronze, I saw Water without a flaw Rush to its rest in air Reach to its rest, and fall.

Women have no wilderness in them They are provident instead Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread.

What we suffer, what we endure, what we muff, what we kill, what we miss, what we are guilty of, is done by us, as individuals, in private.

The art of one period cannot be approached through the attitudes (emotional or intellectual) of another.

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.