We do not know and cannot tell when the spirit is with us. Great talent or small, it makes no difference. We are caught within our own skins, our own sensibilities; we never know if our technique has been adequate to the vision.
There is little character or loveliness in the face of someone who has shunned risk, avoided suffering and rejected life.
A great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or agree with it. A great piece of literature simply is. It is a vehicle of truth, but it is not a blueprint, and we tend to confuse the two.
We do live, all of us, on many different levels, and for most artists the world of imagination is more real than the world of the kitchen sink.
I rebel against death, yet I know that it is how I respond to death’s inevitability that is going to make me less or more fully alive.
The medieval mystics say the true image and the true real met once and for all on the cross: once and for all: and yet they still meet daily.
Poetry, at least the kind I write, is written out of immediate need; it is written out of pain, joy, and experience too great to be borne until it is ordered into words. And then it is written to be shared.
Give the public the ‘image’ of what it thinks it ought to be, or what television commercials or glossy magazine ads have convinced us we ought to be, and we will buy more of the product, become closer to the image, and further from reality.
A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.
Infinity is present in each part. A loving smile contains all art. The motes of starlight spark and dart. A grain of sand holds power and might.
A truly great work of art breaks beyond the bounds of the period and culture in which it is created, so final judgement on a current book has to be deferred until it can be seen outside this present moment.
I knew that the moment I started worrying about whether or not I was good enough for the job, I wouldn’t be able to do it.
All forms of art are consciousness expanders, and I am convinced that they will take us further, and more consciously, than drugs.
Only a fool is not afraid.
I would like to travel light on this journey of life, to get rid of the encumbrances I acquire each day.
Have you ever tried to get to your feet with a sprained dignity?
With our human limitations we’re not always able to understand the explanations.
I don’t know if they’re really like everybody else, or if they’re able to pretend they are.
And joy is always a promise.
But where, after we have made the great decision to leave the security of childhood and move on into the vastness of maturity, does anybody ever feel completely at home?