We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.

All that we are not stares back at what we are.

One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.

All good art is in the nature of a letter written to amuse a sick friend. Too much art, particularly in our time, is only a letter written to oneself.

A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.

Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.

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.