It has been said that a poem should not mean but be. This is not quite accurate. In a poem, as distinct from many other kinds of verbal societies, meaning and being are identical. A poem might be called a pseudo-person. Like a person, it is unique and addresses the reader personally. On the other hand, like a natural being and unlike a historical person, it cannot lie.

To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.

Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.

We do not change as we grow up. The difference between the child and the adult is that the former doesn't know who he is and the latter does.

There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.

I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them.

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.