The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started.

The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

Poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult...The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into its meaning.

It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry -That is a life.

The overwhelming pressure of mediocrity, sluggish and indomitable as a glacier, will mitigate the most violent, and depress the most exalted revolution.

If one has to earn a living, therefore, the safest occupation is that most remote from the arts.

Between the vision and the act lies the shadow.