Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself.

If Rilke cut himself shaving, he would bleed poetry.

Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their poetry.

Never allow gradually the traffic to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Religion stands, the Church blocking the sun.

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.