A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.

Each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

Finding a way to live the simple life is one of life's supreme complications.

I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use them for your closer contact?

Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.

Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.

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