For God's sake,' the dog is saying, 'open the universe a little more!

The fact that there are so many weak, poor and boring stories and novels written and published in America has been ascribed by our rebels to the horrible squareness of our institutions, the idiocy of power, the debasement of sexual instincts, and the failure of writers to be alienated enough. The poems and novels of these same rebellious spirits, and their theoretical statements, are grimy and gritty and very boring too, besides being nonsensical, and it is evident by now that polymorphous sexuality and vehement declarations of alienation are not going to produce great works of art either.

A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.

Death deserves dignity.

Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.

Each man has his own batch of poems.

It is a joy to be choked with thought.