A poet feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked by an event is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship.

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.

And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.

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