We must reject that most dismal and fatuous notion that education is a preparation for life.

Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.

Literature is not a subject of study, but an object of study.

We do not live in a centred space any more, but have to create our own centres.

To bring anything really to life in literature we can't be lifelike: we have to be literature-like

Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of what they are doing. It is probably impossible to answer such questions directly, or at any rate to answer the people who ask them.

The ups and downs of this cosmos may sometimes be acknowledged to be metaphorical ups and downs, but until about Newton's time most people took the "up" of heaven and the "down" of hell to be more or less descriptive.