I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.

Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.

There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight

New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.

What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.

I was thinking, "So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now.

One smile relieves a heart that grieves.

We are all born like Catholics . . . in limbo, without religion.

Death would not surprise us as often as it does, if we let go of the misbelief that newborns are less mortal than the elderly.

Whatever role you play, play it to the hilt.

Where would fashion be without literature?

I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman. I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt.

The Jews of Poland are the smeariest of all races.

Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.

You're surrounded by it wherever you go, you walk through it, breathe it...it's in your lungs and under your tongue and between your fingers and toes.

The successful salesperson cares first for the customer, second for the products.

In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.