Of course, the greater one's need, the greater one's propensity to be mesmerized.

I simply seem to drift. But I sort of allow the drift, because it has a kind of check - it forces me to work harder at what I'm interested in.

I don't think anyone should be banned. If you don't like a book, set it aside.

Everyone sort of sees his own life and times as being ephemeral. One thinks that everything good or important that happened, happened in the past. But I think that seeing scenes that you are used to, but with the heightening effects of poetry, perhaps makes you value your life and times more than you might otherwise do.

Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.

Poetry, I think, intensifies the reader's experience. If it's a humorous facet of the story, poetry makes it more exuberant. If it's a sad facet, poetry can make it more poignant.

Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.