The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.

Poetry makes nothing happen.

Water is the soul of the Earth.

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.

Earth, receive an honored guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.