Tradition: how the vitality of the past enriches the life of the present.

Art serves us best precisely at that point where it can shift our sense of what is possible, when we know more than we knew before, when we feel we have - by some manner of a leap - encountered the truth. That, by the logic of art, is always worth the pain.

Before a cat will condescend to treat you as a trusted friend, some little token of esteem is needed, like a dish of cream.

We fight to keep something alive rather than in the expectation that anything will triumph.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

This is the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word.

The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man