All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.

Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.

To save your world you asked this man to die; would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.

The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.