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

I think of those who were truly great. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.

A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.

An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .

When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.

If you get to a certain age, all people want to know about you is people you knew. ...An American student once said to me, you know, isn't it extraordinary that I am alive and you're not dead.

When I saw photographs of children murdered by the Fascist, I felt furious pity. When the supporters of Franco talked of Red atrocities, I merely felt indignant that people should tell such lies. In the first case I saw corpses, in the second only words. . . I gradually acquired a certain horror of the way in which my own mind worked. It was clear to me that unless I cared about every murdered child impartially, I did not really care about children being murdered at all.