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The good poet sticks to his real loves, to see within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

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Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?

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Man may be considered as a superior species of animal who produces philosophies and poems in about the same way a silkworm produces their cocoons and bees their hives.

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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

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The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.

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There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

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By listening to his language of his locality the poet begins to learn his craft. It is his function to lift, by use of imagination and the language he hears, the material conditions and appearances of his environment to the sphere of the intelligence where they will have new currency.

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No poet sings because he must sing. At least no great poet does. A great poet sings because he chooses to sing.

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It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.

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There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.

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