If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni.

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.

The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others; Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.

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

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.