And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well/ By the purification of the motive/ In the ground of our beseeching

[On The Waste Land:] Various critics have done me the honor to interpret the poem in terms of criticism of the contemporary world, have considered it, indeed, as an important bit of social criticism. To me it was only the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life; it is just a piece of rhythmical grumbling.

Home is where one starts from.

It is a test (a positive test, I do not assert that it is always valid negatively), that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Between the conception and the creation, between the emotion and the response, Falls the shadow.

Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not / You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.