It is a grave error for historians of literature to interpret the national spirit of the age in an oversimplified manner, ignoring the complexity of various cultural and life processes. Instead of using their imagination, they try to read the future by observing the hands of a clock which is still busy measuring the past.

Tradition remains alive only when we struggle with it.

Environment grinds us, forces us to adjust, and--consciously or not--kills our most precious possession: that something which enables us to speak with ourselves and with God.

Poetry, in the entire course of its development, has always been trying to capture meanings and problems which are still obscure and dormant. Poetry tries to awaken them with a kiss, wherever they may be: in the air, in things, in human beings.

Talent--that is to say, the ability to see the world in a unique way--matures and grows in isolation.

The age of sages is past; the age of specialists has come.

The demand that poetry be immediately understandable to everyone is truly absurd.