Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other Who think the same thoughts without need of speech

What is this self-inside us, this silent observer, severe and speechless critic, who can terrorize us, and urge us onto futile activity, and in the end, judge us still more severely for the errors into which his own reproaches drove us?

Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.

No generation is interested in art in quite the same way as any other; each generation, like each individual, brings to the contemplation of art its own categories of appreciation, makes its own demands upon art, and has its own uses for art.

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Writing every day is a way of keeping the engine running, and then something good may come out of it.

[On The Waste Land:] Various critics have done me the honor to interpret the poem in terms of criticism of the contemporary world, have considered it, indeed, as an important bit of social criticism. To me it was only the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life; it is just a piece of rhythmical grumbling.