Reading [poetry], you know, is rather like opening the door to a horde of rebels who swarm out attacking one in twenty places at once - hit, roused, scraped, bared, swung through the air, so that life seems to flash by; then again blinded, knocked on the head - all of which are agreeable sensations for a reader (since nothing is more dismal than to open the door and get no response).

A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it's there complete in the mind, if only at the back.

Let us not take for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.

No one would think of bringing a dog into church. For though a dog is all very well on a gravel path, and shows no disrespect to flowers, the way he wanders down an aisle, looking, lifting a paw, and approaching a pillar with a purpose that makes the blood run cold with horror ... a dog destroys the service completely.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

. . . clumsiness is often mated with a love of solitude.