And fathers are a blessing, too, they give the place a tone; In fact each child should try and have some parents of its own.

Every poet knows the pun is Pierian, that it springs from the same soil as the Muse?a matching and shifting of vowels and consonants, an adroit assonance sometimes derided as jackassonance.

Life, alas, is very drear. Up with the glass! Down with the beer!

God, though this life is but a wraith, Although we know not what we use, Although we grope with little faith, Give me the heart to fight and lose.

Friendship is like love at its best; not blind but sympathetically all-seeing; a support which does not wait for understanding; an act of faith which does not need, but always has, reason.

Write out of love, write out of instinct, write out of reason. But always for money.

Poetry is the power of defining the indefinable in terms of the unforgettable.

Nothing but blackness above And nothing that moves but the cars... God, if you wish for our love, Fling us a handful of stars!

Come, drink the mystic wine of Night, Brimming with silence and the stars; While earth, bathed in this holy light, Is seen without its scars.

Laughter shall drown the raucous shout; And, though these shelt'ring walls are thin, May they be strong to keep hate out And hold love in.

Why has our poetry eschewed The rapture and response of food? What hymns are sung, what praises said For home-made miracles of bread?

God be thanked for books! they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.

My old dance teacher, Jimmy Wilde, a former European ballroom dancing champion, was so sophisticated.

Be confident and not cocky.

The end...is just the beginning

I did toy with the idea of doing a cook-book. . . . I think a lot of people who hate literature but love fried eggs would buy it if the price was right.

Where there is no strife there is decay: 'The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.'

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.

Well, look who I ran into," crowed Coincidence. "Please," flirted Fate, "this was meant to be.

I think classes can be the most fun. And if you want to make it a social thing and you want to go with friends, then that's the way to do it.

A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.