that pathetic short-cut suggested by Nature the supreme joker as a remedy for our loneliness, that ephemeral communion which we persuade ourselves to be of the spirit when it is in fact only of the body - durable not even in memory!

There's no beginning to the farmer's year, / Only recurrent patterns on a scroll / Unwinding...

My garden all is overblown with roses,/ My spirit all is overblown with rhyme.

I cannot abide the Mr. and Mrs. Noah attitude towards marriage; the animals went in two by two, forever stuck together with glue.

There is something intrinsically wrong about letters. For one thing they are not instantaneous. ... Nor is this the only trouble about letters. They do not arrive often enough. A letter which has been passionately awaited should be immediately supplemented by another one, to counteract the feeling of flatness that comes upon us when the agonizing delights of anticipation have been replaced by the colder flood of fulfilment.

Travel is a private pleasure, since it consists entirely of things felt and things seen.

Prose is a poor thing, a poor inadequate thing, compared with poetry which says so much more in shorter time.