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.

life is long between the desire and the spasm.

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.

It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good.

Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.

Taking the question in general, I should say, in the case of many poets, that the most important thing for them to do ... is to write as little as possible

He is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing; and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of exorcism of this demon.