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.

Maturing as a poet means maturing as the whole man, experiencing new emotions appropriate to one's age, and with the same intensity as the emotions of youth.

Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.

Neither way is better. / Both ways are necessary. / It is also necessary / To make a choice between them.

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Death has a hundred hands and walks by a thousand ways.

In my beginning is my end.