No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.

There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.

A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.

Life is a picnic on a precipice.

The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.

About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; How well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.