Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.

A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.

Art is born of humiliation.

Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.

Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are ''shaggy dog'' stories; they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.

You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.

Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.