Before a Cat will condescend To treat you as a trusted friend, Some little token of esteem Is needed, like a dish of cream; And you might now and then supply Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie, Some potted grouse, or salmon paste — He's sure to have his personal taste. (I know a Cat, who makes a habit Of eating nothing else but rabbit, And when he's finished, licks his paws So's not to waste the onion sauce.) A Cat's entitled to expect These evidences of respect. And so in time you reach your aim, And finally call him by his name.

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

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.

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.

That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.

The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.

It has frequently been said that we never desire what we think absolutely inapprehensible: it is however true that some of our sharpest agonies are those in which the object of desire is regarded as both possible and imaginary.