Of course the other and more serious way in which it all happens is that one finds in poems and language some quality one appropriates for oneself and wishes to reproduce.

Words began to appear in English and to make some kind of equivalent. For what satisfaction it is hard to say, except that something seems unusually piercing, living, handsome, in another language, and since English is yours, you wish it to be there too.

In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary.

Electronic brains may help us to use our heads but will not excuse us from that duty, and as to our hearts-cardiograms cannot diagnose what may be most ill about them, or confirm what may be best. The faithful woman and the versatile brave man, the wakeful intelligence open to inspiration or grace-these are still exemplary for our kind, as they always were and always will be.

Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.

I think there are perhaps two ways in which one can begin.

The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.