The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.

Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.

I suppose I did feel a certain public pressure always.

If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.

If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance, Here and there and now and then, a stance.

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir; that Tacitus was right and that peace is merely the desolation left behind after the decisive operations of merciless power.