There are flood and drought over the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil, laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth.

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion.

Men dislike being awakened from their death in life.

Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

Most contemporary novels are not really "written." They obtain what reality they have largely from an accurate rendering of the noises that human beings currently make in their daily simple needs of communication; and what part of a novel is not composed of these noises consists of a prose which is no more alive than that of a competent newspaper writer or government official. A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel-reader is not prepared to give.

In the last few years everything I'd done up to sixty or so has seemed very childish.