“There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own lifes meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose...”

“My wish is that you may be loved to the point of madness.”

“My wife with the hair of a wood fireWith the thoughts of heat lightningWith the waist of an hourglassWith the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tigerMy wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bu...”

“Lifes greatest gift is the freedom it leaves you to step out of it whenever you choose.”

“Il faut que lhomme svade de cette lice ridicule quon lui a faite: le prtendu rel actuel avec la perspective dun rel futur qui ne vaille gure mieux. Chaque minute pleine porte en elle-mme la ngation...”

“We all love conflagrations. When the sky changes color, it is a dead man's passing.”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”

“Protesters are still on the fringes like satellites, revolving around the system. But prophets and poets lead us into a new world, beyond simply yelling at the old one.”

“Why do I write? Out of fear. Out of fear that the memory of the people I write about might go lost. Out of fear that the memory of myself might get lost. Or even just to be shielded by a story, to ...”

“They say that it is always poets that die in wars, and I never got over a sense of being in the trenches.”