Title deeds generally outlast poems.
When poets go off the boil, they sound like bumble bees; when critics do, they sound like sewing machines.
Rule of religion: purpose breathes even in dirt and stones.
The worship of Mammon may be vulgar or immoral, but it persists while other religions falter and disappear.
A theology whose god is a metaphor is wasting its time.
The sacred is found boring by many who find the uncanny fascinating.
Beautiful people are forgiven more often than the rest.
Beauty and virtue: the most kissable ass in the world is no guarantee of good intentions.
Beauty compels us; reason merely cajoles.
Thoughts can be revised. Deeds cannot.
By the time I have clarified a thought, I no longer want to think it.
I feel that I have something significant to say, but I cannot think what it is.
A small boy puts his hand on the wall, and looks down intently as he wriggles his toes. The birth of thought?
To make a thought my own, I must think it often.
Every few years something new breaks into the circle of my thoughts.
Youth demands more than ordinary life. Age clings to it.
As the tenor roars his passion, I think sadly of my spreading middle, and his.
The noisy vacancy of youth, the quiet vacancy of age.
Growth provides novel experiences for youth; decay the same, alas, for age.
With age, I have become both more pious and more shameless.