Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one’s gifts?
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
Water is the soul of the Earth.
We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don’t know.
Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.
There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.
Learn from your dreams what you lack.
The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.
I used to try and concentrate the poem so much that there wasn’t a word that wasn’t essential. This leads to becoming boring and constipated.
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.
You owe it to all of us to get on with what you’re good at.
I’ll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.
No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.