All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: "I refuse to be what I am."

The eye likes novelty, but the ear craves familiarity.

Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

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.

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.

To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.

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