"Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master’s commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too "personal" style."

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

"In the course of many centuries a few laborsaving devices have been introduced into the mental kitchen — alcohol, coffee, tobacco, Benzedrine, etc. — but these are very crude, constantly breaking down, and liable to injure the cook. Literary composition in the twentieth century A.D. is pretty much what it was in the twentieth century B.C.: nearly everything has still to be done by hand."

"All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work "comes" to him."

"How happy the lot of the mathematician! He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve. No cashier writes a letter to the press complaining about the incomprehensibility of Modern Mathematics and comparing it unfavorably with the good old days when mathematicians were content to paper irregularly shaped rooms and fill bathtubs without closing the waste pipe."

"Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud."

"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."

"At first critics classified authors as Ancients, that is to say, Greek and Latin authors, and Moderns, that is to say, every post-Classical Author. Then they classified them by eras, the Augustans, the Victorians, etc., and now they classify them by decades, the writers of the '30's, '40's, etc. Very soon, it seems, they will be labeling authors, like automobiles, by the year."

"One cannot review a bad book without showing off."

"Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."

"In general, when reading a scholarly critic, one profits more from his quotations than from his comments."

"The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it."

"Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another; they might also ask themselves how much poetry of any period they can honestly say that they understand."

"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."

"What reverence is rightly paid To a divinity so odd He lets the Adam whom he made Perform the Acts of God?"

"Thousands have lived without love, not one without water."

"Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day."

"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."

"This great society is going to smash; They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods."

"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"

"They never forgot That even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree."

"About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along."

"Every farthing of the cost, All the dreaded cards foretell, Shall be paid, but from this night Not a whisper, not a thought, Not a kiss nor look be lost."

"Lay your sleeping head, my love Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral; But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie: Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful."

"And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses Itching to boil their children. Only his verses Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working."

"As a rule, It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust."

"The Godhead is broken like bread. We are the pieces."

"Evil is unspectacular and always human, And shares our bed and eats at our own table."

"And children swarmed to him like settlers. He became a land."

"Like love we don't know where or why Like love we can't compel or fly Like love we often weep Like love we seldom keep"

"He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good."

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come."

"The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance’s pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down with the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop."

"The greater the love, the more false to its object Not to be born is the best for man After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle Break the embraces, dance while you can."

"My head looks an egg upon a plate, My nose is not too bad, but isn’t straight; I have no proper eyebrows, and my eyes Are far too close together to look nice."

"The stars are dead. The animals will not look. We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon."

"To-morrow the rediscovery of romantic love, The photographing of ravens; all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow the hour of the pageant-master and the musician, The beautiful roar of the chorus under the dome; To-morrow the exchanging of tips on the breeding of terriers, The eager election of chairmen By the sudden forest of hands. But to-day the struggle.To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs, The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion; To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the struggle."

"On that arid square, that fragment nipped off from hot Africa, soldered so crudely to inventive Europe; On that tableland scored by rivers, Our thoughts have bodies; the menacing shapes of our feverAre precise and alive. For the fears which made us respond To the medicine ad and the brochure of winter cruises Have become invading battalions; And our faces, the institute-face, the chain-store, the ruinAre projecting their greed as the firing squad and the bomb. Madrid is the heart. Our moments of tenderness blossom As the ambulance and the sandbag; Our hours of friendship into a people's army."

"And the poor in their fireless lodgings, dropping the sheets Of the evening paper: "Our day is our loss, O show us History the operator, the Organiser, Time the refreshing river." And the nations combine each cry, invoking the life That shapes the individual belly and orders The private nocturnal terror: "Did you not found the city state of the sponge, "Raise the vast military empires of the shark And the tiger, establish the robin's plucky canton? Intervene, O descend as a dove or A furious papa or a mild engineer, but descend.""

"August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier."

"We must lose our loves, On each beast and bird that moves Turn an envious look."

"Fish in the unruffled lakes Their swarming colours wear, Swans in the winter air A white perfection have, And the great lion walks Through his innocent grove; Lion, fish and swan Act, and are gone Upon Time's toppling wave."

"A shilling life will give you all the facts."

"Cold, impossible, ahead Lifts the mountain's lovely head Whose white waterfall could bless Travellers in their last distress."

"Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last; Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on."

"O it's broken the lock and splintered the door, O it's the gate where they're turning, turning; Their boots are heavy on the floor And their eyes are burning."

"O what is that sound which so thrills the ear Down in the valley drumming, drumming? Only the scarlet soldiers, dear, The soldiers coming."

"Look, stranger, on this island now The leaping light for your delight discovers, Stand stable here And silent be, That through the channels of the ear May wander like a river The swaying sound of the sea."